The newest study from Rasmussen confirms that the president has lost the battle for American hearts and minds. The main reason: Most Americans are satisfied with the employer-based or Medicare program they now have, and they’re not seeing any change they can believe in. They think the reform will make them change insurers, and the new system of care will be worse than the one they have now. They notice that the president only assures them their care can stay where it is for now, while remaining silent over what’s going to happen over the not-so-long term. A responsible view is that the employer-based system is regressive, provides perverse incentives in our dynamic economy, and is unsustainable over the long term. The real question, from that view, is whether health care should devolve to the individual (with often subsidized private insurance) or the government (which is scary in many ways–especially on the rationing and sustainability fronts). Most Americans don’t like either answer to the question, but their fear is focused, of course, on devolution to government.
From the point of view of good government, the best result would be for this deep distrust to lead to the Republicans recapturing Congress in 2010. (People, with good reason, distrust the Democratic Congress far more than the president.) That, it seems to me, would be the precondition for genuine negotiation that compromises conflicting principles and produces reform people can trust. From this point of view, I’m less inclined to diss Glenn Beck for not being classy enough to join us at our postmodern conservative club meetings, and even the Obamacons have to concede that what’s best about the president would shine forth more clearly with an adversarial Congress that earns his respect.
September 28th, 2009 | 12:33 pm
“even the Obamacons have to concede that what’s best about the president would shine forth more clearly with an adversarial Congress that earns his respect.”
I think we all agree that having a respectable opposition is a good thing, but given the current insane state of the GOP, it’s more likely that those Republicans in Congress who remain reasonable and respectable will lose their seats in primary challenges. The Dems are bad news, but the Republicans are beyond hope if a respectable opposition is what we’re hoping for from them.
But then maybe it depends on how you define “respect.”
September 28th, 2009 | 3:13 pm
A Republican Congress in our corner would make for much better company than just Beck, who sometimes manages to be insufferable even when he’s right. But I don’t think his problem is a deficit of class, unless it’s impossible to be classy if you’re that histrionic. Histrionic isn’t the same as rough and tumble or even rude and crude, qualities inevitable and not always regrettable by far in citizen-driven politics. And ultimately, as I’d even say our town halls suggest, histrionics are better inside the tent of political practice than outside on the teevee.
September 28th, 2009 | 5:58 pm
Some points,
1. I’m not as optimistic on the polls. Rasmussen tends to lean a little right. The FoxNews/Opinion dynamics poll shows support for Obama’s approach to healthcare (the closest proxy to the question of ObamaCare that I could find in the poll) to be in the low 40s while opposition was in the high forties. The New York Times/CBS poll had support at 47 and opposition at 45. Lets split the difference and say that a plurality that might be a slight majority opposes ObamaCare. Thats not good for Obama considering his political talents, the sympathy or the media, and the rhetorical weakness of the congressional GOP, but public opinion is more on the sceptical side of ambiguous rather than solidly against.
2. This ambiguity matters alot because public opinion will have only an indirect influence on whether ObamaCare passes this year. The key congressional constituency is made up of swing-district House Democrats and red-state Senate Democrats. Those two groups are subject to some threats and many more bribes from their party’s leadership. I figure that most of them are unprincipled survivors (Democrat Arlen Specters…er Susan Collinses) and that only self-preservation will get them to vote against ObamaCare in the end. I’m not sure the polls are quite bad enough to scare enogh wavering Democrats to cross their party on healthcare this year.
3. If ObamaCare passes this year, it may not matter if the GOP takes control of Congress in 2010 – and its tough to see eleven Senate pick ups in any case. As Obama is learning, it is much harder to do things than to undo them. If a private-insurance-market destroying plan is enacted, the bias towards stasis shifts in the favor of government-run healthcare.
4. From a broadly conservative domestic policy position (both on limited government and social conservative grounds), one could hardly imagine a worse President getting elected given America’s political culture. This is not a comment on Obama’s character, just his policy agenda. I hope the Obamacons are enjoying his temperment
5. the intraconservative slapfight over Beck (I’m thinking the Frum-Horowitz thing) is kind of overblown on both sides. Even if Beck is just as bad as his critics say, its not like conservatism didn’t have its Wally Georges and Morton Downey Juniors in the 1980s. The problem is less that there are too many Becks than there are not enough Yuval Levins. I think that the best approach to Beck is to not make too much of him in either boosting or recoil. He gave a wider audience to charges to underplayed about ACORN and Van Jones. His comments about Obama’s feelings toward white people were so out of line that you would have thought he was a right-wing Jimmy Carter. He spread (and then made a show of discrediting) crazy conspiracy theory stuff about government detention camps in the West. Conservatives might take three approaches to Beck – preferably at the same time. First, give credit where its due. Second, criticize when he is wrong and his wrongness comes up in conversation. There is no need to rally round Beck. Third, no extravagant praise and no inclination to police his every word either. He is just a talk show host.
September 28th, 2009 | 6:11 pm
Unfortunately, many Republicans in office have not proven to be reliable conservatives. Their opportunites at governing as the majority party, although perhaps not as egregiously reckless as their Democrat counterparts now, nevertheless resulted in far too much spending, a disturbingly relaxed view of government expansion (on which the Democrats are gleefully building now), and wrong actions concerning immigration and border security, to name a few. Unless the Republican party can regroup and reorder itself to represent truly conservative principles, it will not be much use to the American people who realize that the federal government is out of control.
What we need in 2010 are candidates for office who will proudly and with fidelity promise that if elected they will turn the tide in Washington to a more responsive and more bounded, Constitutional government. So, again, I urge all to get involved at the local level and help find good men and women to stand against the many elected officials who need to be voted out.
September 29th, 2009 | 6:28 am
Kristin, God bless her is correct. If neo-con Repubs are returned to Congress in 2010 well, the tea parties, ect have all been for naught. We need paleos and conservative independents who’ll form a coalition in the Congress to defeat the socialist Dems.
But it’s hard to beat Socialist Democrats, they give people free stuff.
September 29th, 2009 | 11:07 am
I agree with most of Peter’s sobering analysis. I too hope that the Obamacons are enjoying the president’s style, temperament, and cultural graces, because no “con” can be happy with his actual policies. It’s very likely that health care “reform” passes this year, because the moderates, as Pete suggests, are very moderate in their moderation unless their self-preservation is threatened. If stuff passes this year but its real effects haven’t kicked in yet, health care might not even be a big issue in the next election. What gets done will be almost impossible to get undone, which is why I’m not opposed to Beckian demagoguery at this point.
September 29th, 2009 | 11:43 am
Yes, this is a rather urgent situation. If our undocumented president and his socialist allies succeed at nationalized medicine (health care) we can turn out the lights. This is America’s Sayler Creek (for you CW fans)!
And, interestingly enough, the socialist Dems have all of the legislative votes they need…they don’t need no stinkin’ Republicans.
So we’ll see what happens…keep your powder dry friends and neighbors!
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