Pelosi's Health Care Bill: The Problem...

Mickey Kaus repeats something I've been hearing since Sunday morning. The real problem facing Democrats in Congress is very simple: With a growing majority of Americans who oppose ALL of the health care legislation presently before Congress, Dems fear that they won't have the large majority that they presently hold in BOTH houses of Congress.

The problem facing health care reform, as Dick Morris and others have been arguing for months, isn't these tediously subtle legislative complications. They're what we see on the surface. The problem is the crude, primal politics underneath them--the legislature's' "id." It's the fear, among power-lusting Democratic Congresspersons, that if they vote for health care they won't be Congresspersons much past November, 2010 (or that even if they win, they will no longer be in the majority party). They're not worried about Cadillac plans. They're worried about castration.

If the House plan is passed through the Senate and then signed by Mr. Obama, I firmly believe that the present 60/40 split in the Senate will become 63 Republicans/Independents-37 Dems/Independents. Furthermore, I think that the Dems will lose at least 100 seats in the house.

I think that the Democratic leadership in the White House and Congress are under-estimating the genuine anger that many moderate (& or fiscally conservative) voters feel. Mr. Obama's reference on Saturday's pep-talk to Democrats in the house that called those who oppose his agenda "tea-baggers" will come back to bite him on his fundament...next November. More importantly Mr. Obama hinted that by supporting his seizure of the health care industry, his (now plunging) popularity will shield those who support him. On the other hand, Kaus makes this huge point:

"[Y]ou should get behind his plan and benefit from the from the political cover he'll work to give those who support him," Dickerson has Obama saying. You mean like the cover he gave Jon Corzine in New Jersey? ...

I for one, was genuinely shocked when Corzine lost last week. I thought that he would win with 2-4%...by those who supported Dagget during the campaign (as a protest) but who would actually vote for the incumbent...I don't think that our "elite" leadership in Wash, DC can under estimate voter anger at incumbent politicians. Nor do I think that this anger will soften over the next 12 months.