Judging from the reactions I’ve read today, I think I’m one of the few progressive bloggers who isn’t particularly bothered by President Obama’s reluctance to spell out exactly what he wants in a health care bill. That is, I understand why progressives would be upset: by (some) Senate Democrats’ own admission, Obama’s silence — especially on the public option — has made negotiations more difficult for public option proponents, who don’t have much to use as leverage against their conservative colleagues. On the other hand, it’s obvious that the White House is trying real hard not to box themselves in with regards to what counts as a “victory.”
The simple fact is that the Obama administration is extremely clear-eyed about how much leverage they don’t have relative to the most conservative senators in their caucus. Even a forceful endorsement of the public opinion on part of President Obama is not enough to bend the “problem caucus” of Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. Indeed, you can easily imagine a scenario where President Obama invests a ton of political capital in pushing for a public option that is then cut from the final bill as a concession to one of the public option opponents. In this world, a public option loss means that the administration can’t reap the full political benefits of passing a bill, as the press will paint it as something akin to a Pyrrhic victory, even if the underlying bill is quite good. By contrast, silence ensures that whatever passes can be counted as an unambiguous win.
The downside, of course, is that this gives conservative Democrats plenty of room to water-down the bill further, secure in the knowledge that the administration will do little to chastise them. Even still, it’d be silly to blame Obama for this. That Obama has to bend to the wishes of a small minority has more to do with the failure of the Senate as an institution than it does with any spinelessness on the administration’s part. All the rhetoric in the world doesn’t change the fact that in the Senate, small minorities are empowered to force tremendous concessions on any piece of legislation. If you’re looking for someone to blame for a weak health care bill, look no further than the “world’s greatest deliberative body.”
