Move On Tells Us the Magnitude of Scott Brown's Win

In the aftermath of Scott Brown beating Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts Senate race, pundits, both of the professional and the in-your-parent's-basement type, have been playing tug of war over what the election really means. Reading all these pundits simply shows that hindsight in this case seems to muddy rather than clear the waters. For that reason I went back to the archives and found this breathless email from Moveon.org, sent on January 8th, 11 days before the election, titled,

"Urgent: A Republican in Ted Kennedy's seat?"

Horror of all horrors! They said a Coakley loss would be "devastating", and that "health care could die, and the Republicans could block pretty much anything they want."

In order to avoid such a catastrophic outcome, Moveon invoked "progressive hero" Ted Kennedy's name seven times in the email. They quoted Kennedy's widow Vicki, who said, "My husband fought for healthcare reform for more than 40 years. Martha Coakley shares those critical beliefs."

Clearly Moveon saw this election as a referendum on health care. Clearly they thought that Massachusetts voters wouldn't dream of replacing a progressive health care reform icon with the very vote that could end the momentum of what is the closest the country has been to progressive reform in decades. Clearly, they were wrong.

2009 Democrats Need to Learn Lessons of 1960s Democrats: Lie

NPR recently interviewed James Morone, who co-authored a book entitled, "The Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office." The interview centered on how President Lyndon Johnson pushed Medicare through Congress until its ultimate passage. Mr. Morone and Renee Montagne, who interviewed him for NPR, both assume great current public support for Medicare, and this assumption is what allows them to reveal a remarkable fact about how Medicare was sold to the public all those years ago. Morone obtained tapes of phone conversations President Johnson had with members of Congress as he guided Medicare through the political process, including one such conversation with noted public health care advocate Ted Kennedy,

"Johnson maneuvered every step of the way, getting this bill through Congress. And one of the things he did - and this is a little dicey in today's climate. One of the things he did was suppress the costs. So this young kid gets elected from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy, in 1962. And Johnson is explaining to him how you get a health bill through. And what he tells him is don't let them get the cost projected too far out, because it'll scare other people.

Pres. JOHNSON: A health program yesterday runs 300 million, but the fools had to go to projecting it down the road five or six years. And when you project the first year, it runs 900 million. Now I don't know whether I would approve 900 million the second year or not. I might approve 450 or 500. But the first thing Dick Russell comes running in, saying my God, you've got a billion dollar program for next year on health, therefore I'm against any of it now. Do you follow me?

Senator EDWARD KENNEDY (Democrat, Massachusetts): Yes, right.

Mr. MORONE: We believe after looking at the evidence - my co-author and I -that if the true cost of Medicare had been known, if Johnson hadn't basically hidden them, the program would never have passed. America's second-most beloved program would never have happened if we had had genuine cost estimates. "

Now, the title of this post is written somewhat in jest. Democrats don't really need to learn the lessons from their 60's counterparts. They're well on their way to upping the ante.

Putting aside for the moment many of the lies and misrepresentations regarding health care reform we've seen in the last couple of months (from a public option not leading to single payer, or that you'll get to keep your current insurance if you want to, to the President's fact-bending health care speech to Congress), we can focus on and find parallels to President Johnson's cost concealing Medicare push with what President Obama has done with the costs of the proposals we've seen so far.

The original bill making waves in Congress had a Congressional Budget Office price tag of over $1 trillion. Having learned the lessons of Medicare, Democrats couldn't allow that number to be taken seriously, so they went about trying to discredit the CBO's numbers,

Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

"it's always been a source, yes I will say frustration, for many of us in Congress that the CBO will always give you the worst case scenario"

Senator Tom Harkin:

"The way CBO scores some things sometimes doesn't make a whole lot of sense -- I mean, real-life sense,"

Senator Chris Dodd:

"One of the things that's disappointing about CBO -- and frustrating -- is all the work…done on prevention" that the CBO doesn’t factor in"

The President also voiced his "concern" over CBO numbers, saying the CBO doesn't give him credit for all the savings included in the bill which would offset many of the costs. What he neglects to mention is that the CBO did in fact account for those measures, and found they wouldn't save money at all. In fact, they likely will add to the costs. But no matter, these statements from Democratic stalwarts aren't meant to be used in factual debates; rather, their purpose is to cast enough doubt on the CBO numbers so that they can more readily ignore the independent group's cost projections.

Cost projections which could very well be on the low end. By law, CBO projections only go out ten years. So other groups have projected beyond that horizon and found significantly higher costs. Which is not surprising, considering recent studies showing government consistently underestimates the true costs of programs. So consistently, in fact, that it's apparent this underestimation is not done by accident. No, it would seem politicians have all learned President Johnson's lesson very well.

Chinks in Democratic Party Armor, or Constructive Criticism Leading to Better Leadership?

I wrote about my flirtation with the Democratic Party, and how the last election was the final nail in the flirtation coffin, here. However, with Obama's "Change" candidacy sweeping into the presidency, and Democrats increasing their hold over Congress, the Democratic Party was supposed to be marching to total domination. Republicans were told elections have consequences, and many long pent-up Democratic Party priorities were thought to have clear sailing in the coming months and years.

It was with that backdrop that I read with interest a recent article in The New Republic titled, Why the Democrats Can't Govern. It highlited areas of concern for President Obama - not from the opposing Republican Party, but from his own supposed party faithful in Congress. In that article, Jonathan Chait argues,

The last Democrat who held the White House, Bill Clinton, saw the core of his domestic agenda come to ruin, his political support collapse, and his failure spawn a massive Republican resurgence that made progressive reform impossible for a decade to come. The Democrat who last held the White House before that, Jimmy Carter, saw the exact same thing happen to him.

At this early date, nobody can know whether or not Barack Obama will escape this fate. But the contours of failure are now clearly visible. In Obama's case, as with his predecessors, the prospective culprit is the same: Democrats in Congress

It's a well written critique, but one that comes on the heals of a supposedly watershed election for the Democratic Party. An election that was all about change, about the public ditching the Republican Party and the political pendulum swinging inevitably in favor of the Democrats.

But apparently there are significant roadblocks to Democratic domination.

It was in the midst of reading and pondering that article on national Democratic Party internal politics that another internal struggle erupted. This time within the local party.

After apparently simmering for some time, the criticisms boiled over into a blog post by Bob Aagard, who expressed his frustration at state party leadership. It attracted a lot of attention in the form of comments and follow up posts, and seems to have inspired others who share the same frustrations to blog about them as well.

Basically, there is frustration at how the party is being led locally. Utah Dems see party gains in other Western states and lament the failure to capitalize here in Utah. This failure is being blamed on party leadership generally and State head Wayne Holland specifically. Rob Miller of the Utah Amicus blog, and the state vice chair, commented and gave a reasoned defense of the Party's activities. Rob's was one of the first blogs I found when I started this almost 3 years ago, and frankly was one of the reasons for my flirtation with his party. But he hasn't fared so well in these series of posts.

I'm left to wonder at the coincidental timing of these two controversies - one local, one national. The major difference is that the national story is about the struggle with success while the local version is dissatisfaction with failure, or at least less success than was desired. But the link in both stories is criticism of one's own party and party leadership. Does it reveal a hefty chink in the Democratic Party's new found armor, or does it show a party faithful not content to allow the failures of the past? I suppose only time will tell.