Posted on 12/18/2009 7:37:58 PM PST by Signalman
We really have no reason to be winning this health care debate. The Democrats were swept into the Oval Office with a sweeping mandate, they have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a commanding majority in the House, and, at the beginning of the year, they were popular in the eyes of the public and had a plethora of political capital to spend.
After spending some of it on the ill-conceived stimulus package, health care was next. One year ago at this time, I would have said: it’s done for. The public wants reform, they want a “public option,” they have their votes, they’re going to get it. I was very wrong. I overestimated this president.
To this day, we have no idea what the president wanted in the bill. He voted present. Public option? Co-ops? Medicare expansions? Individual mandates? “He couldn’t choose between yes…or no. It was too tough!” — He doesn’t know how to corral a group of testy senators and Congressmen together. He’s never worked in an executive position, and he’d only gotten a few short years (most of them spent on the campaign trail) to see the inner workings of the Senate.
Obama’s political life has been a series of things magically falling into place — in 2004, Jack Ryan imploded, and in 2008, the sheer force of his speeches carried him to victory over an arrogant Hillary Clinton campaign. In the fall, the economy’s collapse locked in a victory for him that otherwise looked fairly shaky. But he doesn’t know how to be an executive. He’s never done anything like this before.
So he’s succeeded at pissing off the right, the progressives, and independents. Straggling moderates, blacks, and mainstream liberals are still with him, but that’s an awfully weak political coalition: by their nature, they don’t make much noise and aren’t especially motivated to vote in off-years.
Nobody with any political influence is saying anything other than “Kill this Bill!” And because he has successfully pissed everyone with convictions off, 2010 is shaping up to be very, very bad for Obama. And he’s got no one but himself to blame.
We ought to very, very thankful for the fact that we have such a neophyte to deal with — and an arrogant one, at that. We’re beating him, against all odds, on all fronts — health care, global warming, spending, Guantanamo — in the eyes of the public.
What will he do now? A second stimulus? A jobs program? More cap-and-trade? Immigration? What a mess. 2010, here we come.
Bump
What a gift, Merry Christmas!
The gift that keeps on giving.
Pray!
God moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.
TEA Party movement stopped the bill. It was supposed to be passed in August and it got stopped dead. Thanks to the 9.12 march on DC. It was great! 1.7m of us there. That was of course after the March and April protests against the porkulus.
I'm not sure who we are. I don't think my side is winning. The United States is rocketing toward bankruptcy with health care as on of the Apollo vehicles.
Obama hasn't been defeated yet, and I don't think he will be on this issue.
Yes pray. Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow.
Gods providence. His answers to many prayers......
Never heard the old saw about counting chickens? America is in shit so deep she needs scuba gear. We may stop 0bama’s agenda, may even get rid of him and the worst of the democrats, but they’ve already done major and lasting damage to our country. The worst is ahead.
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