Health Reform After Action Report
Was there any time this year when the Republicans in Congress and conservatives in the country had anything like a strategy on healthcare? Either a credible plan as to how to beat it - or else a set of negotiating demands for amending it?
Sure doesn't look that way. The demands of our base for unrelenting opposition ruled out negotiating. But the weight of numbers on the Democratic side - and the evolution of the Democratic party into a much more united coalition than it was in 1993 - raised the odds against oppositional success lethally high.
Maybe reaction against Obamacare plus the bad job numbers will gain seats in next year's mid-terms. (Equally maybe the passage of Obamacare will mobilize Democrats and reduce the losses they would otherwise have suffered - tough call.) But that result only implies that the GOP had a 2010 strategy. The Dems had a 2009 strategy. Result: it looks like they win the year.