Telling Good Luck from Bad

My reactions to the predictable Massachusetts senate loss and the possible demise of yet another health care reform have been all over the place. Last night, sure of the Democrats' loss but eternally hopeful anyway, I pointedly refused to watch any news related show and instead stuck to movies - Inherit the Wind followed by Best of Show. This morning I woke up and learned the inevitable when I got the Post out of the driveway.

"There goes health care," was my first reaction. That moment of despair metastisized to a certainty that when the Republicans surely win back the Senate in the midterms our country will be at a standstill. I mean when Justice Stevens resigns, Obama could nominate Oliver Wendel Holmes and not a single Republican would vote for confirmation. So we might have to kiss "cap and trade" good bye and any attempt to finally regulate a banking/financial sector that is bringing our country to the brink of ruin.

From there I began thinking of my recent reading of Andrew Jakson's biography, coupled with last year's So Damn Much Money, and came to the inescapable conclusion that the banks and insurance lobbies really do run the country and there is nothing to be done.

But then I started to act my age and things got better. I have always maintained that the main difference between a Democrat and a Republican is that a Democrat is more likely to have faith in government, while a Republican's goal is to limit government to garbage collection and defense. For a minute there I was beginning to betray that fundamental belief. And so I began to reconsider my despair.

From this new perspective, the loss in Massachusetts is just one more example of government at work. The people, at least the ones who chose to vote in Massachusetts, obviously don't like big government programs. They ironically do want health care reform, but they don't want government involved in it. I don't know how that is possible, but it won't do much good to ignore the message being sent.

Maybe this means that the folks in Washington have to scrap what they have done and start over. And I'm not sure that would be all bad. I have read everything I can get my hands on about the health care debate, and the bill(s) as it currently exists is a confusing maze of stop gap measures and shameless kiss-ups to every special interest out there. Yes, I know it is a start and that perfection probably isn't possible, but this seems to miss the mark by an unsustainable margin. And yes, I know that bargaining with the Republicans in Congress who only have one tool - tax cuts - in their tool box seems to be pointless at best, but as Andrew Sullivan said in a recent piece, maybe it is time to call the Republican bluff.

Obama's performance in light of the supposed "super majority" in the Senate has been disappointing. Since the majority is basically a fiction and is instead comprised of all manner of political stances, Obama and the Democratic leadership haven't been able to "get tough" like so many left wingers want. There was never a realistic hope of getting this hodge podge to agree on anything. Whereas getting all 40 (now 41) Republicans to vote the party line is easy because in fact they have only one party line - all problems can be solved by cutting taxes and if that means that some people will lose, well "fuck'em."

The problem is that Obama's approach to health care attempted to appease all of these various Democrats in order to defeat the possibility of a filibuster. What we have now is a bill vilified by both ends of the political spectrum. Only those people, like Paul Krugman, who know something about history and political reality can find anything to like in the bill.

But now with the illusion of a filibuster proof majority gone, maybe Obama can go back to his roots, as it were. Maybe he can introduce legislation that lives up to his promises instead of sinking to the lowest common denominator and in so doing can start defining the debate again instead of leaving that to his critics at Fox News and talk radio. I think if he does that, he will win back his base of young voters with whims of iron.

But I take umbrage in the certainty that Obama's presidency - anyone's presidency - never has enough clout to remake the country to the extent that voters would like to believe it can. That is also why I take comfort in the knowledge that even something as seemingly calamitous as a Sarah Palin presidency in 2012 will not effect my life very much. There is one thing I know for sure about change: Tomorrow will be a lot like today.