HCR: The third rail of American politics-poison to all that try to touch it.

Politics_Guy25

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Fri Dec-18-09 01:27 AM
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HCR: The third rail of American politics-poison to all that try to touch it.

Edited on Fri Dec-18-09 01:33 AM by Politics_Guy25

I'm just looking at what HCR did to President Clinton and what it has done to President Obama. Both presidents saw gigantic approcal rating drops when they dared to tackle the issue. For President Clinton, it sent his approval ratings down to 35% by mid 1994 or so, created a republican revolution that lost him his huge majorities in Congress and actually created significant republican majorities. He lost a majority of the state governorships as well in 1994. In essence, HCR killed the Clinton presidency and it was only Newt Gingrich and his extremely radical agenda that repulsed the American people so much that Clinton was resurrected. Being a petulant child crying about not getting a seat on AF1 and shutting the government down didn't help either. It exposed Gingrich for the radical he was and he was destroyed. President Clinton arose like a phoenix from the ashes. HOWEVER, the damage of attempting to tackle HCR was done. He lost congress for the rest of his presidency.

Now fast forward to 2009. President Obama on January 23, 2009 had the 3rd highest approval ratings ever of all presidents in their initial gallup poll rating at 68%. Now he's below 50% in most major polls. Before he tackled HCR, his approval ratings were soaring. He had cowered the GOP with his nomination of Justice Sotomayor, A MASTER STROKE, that reached out to the Hispanics and locked them in. The GOP was on the run. We had solid leads in the congressional ballot as well.

Now, the GOP has a 7% congressional lead, President Obama is under 50%, and the democratic party is engaged in bitter interparty warfare over the elements of the bill.

People close to President Obama, according to articles that I've read, pleaded with him. They said "Don't tackle HCR. It's a minefield. It's disastrous. DON'T DO IT. At least not in year 1."

He didn't listen. Now our base is enraged, the republicans are energized, and his presidency AND our congressional majorities are hanging in the balance.

He should have tackled the economy and nothing but the economy the first year. Once he had shown demonstrable progress on the economy and a vastly reduced unemployment rate, THEN he could have used the political capital that he had gained from putting America back to work to pass a STRONG HCR bill. YES, I know that sounds like it could come from Cantor's mouth. But have you ever considered that Cantor was right but for the wrong reasons. Cantor said it for evil purposes but a wise white house sage could have said exactly the same thing. All he had to do was wait 2 years. Build up his gravitas. Build up accomplishments outside of the HCR sphere like in the economy and in foreign policy. His approval rating would have stayed high and I bet you that he'd have stood a good chance of GAINING seats in 2010. Then with a 61-62 seat senate and a continued strong house majority, THEN he could have tackled HCR.

He should have waited, built up his strength and then pounced.

Now, all is well if he is willing to be a one-term president over this bill. But really is this bill worth being a 1-termer over? Not at all. It's certainly not worth seeing a Sarah Palin Presidency over. It's also not fair to send our democratic comrades in the congress to their electoral slaughter in 2010 over this.

This has been epically FUBAR. I guess it's not a surprise. Nixon tried it, Truman tried it, Clinton tried it. All were defeated. One would have thought that President Obama would have learned the lesson of the Clinton HCR catastrophe. Instead, here we are again. Another HCR catastrophe. Not to mention that when you tackle the insurance oligarchy, the pharma oligharcy, Fox News, and other entrenched interests, you'd have better be prepared for an epic war, a struggle between good and evil really. They weren't.

I'm disappointed in the sales job for this. It was beyond messed. Just to close, I bet ya if he had other huge accomplishments under his belt when he tried to accomplish this, that he would have succeeded.

This is the first time that the Obama team has made a key strategic blunder. Now, we await our fate.

P.S.: Go ahead flame away, unrec, accuse me of being Eric Cantor himself. All I am doing is looking at the messed up situation that we find ourselves in and saying that there was another way.