Don’t Blame Republicans for Passage of Obamacare
Some conservatives, notably RedState’s Erick Erickson, are quick to blame Senate Republicans for failing to block the expected passage today of Harry Reid’s legislation to overhaul our nation’s health care system. And while to be sure, the GOP reaction has been far from perfect, with Erickson himself offering some sound criticisms, on the whole, Senator McConnell has done a remarkable job. He held his caucus together, even Republicans eager for media accolades as well as moderates from a state where John McCain got barely 40% of the vote and carried only one remote county.
To fault Republicans from blocking Obamacare (and some say it could still be defeated) is to look at a football team which starts the game on its own 20 yard line, with 50% fewer men on the field than its opponent who has home field advantage. The referees are favored the larger lineup. And with home field advantage, the opponents have packed the stadium with supporters eager to cheer them on and jeer the GOP team, pelting them with snowballs, tomatoes and rocks. To be sure, our team has managed to sneak a few supporters into the bleachers. And they held their own as the home team used fisticuffs to silence them, attempting to bite off their fingers and smear them as haters for daring to attend the game and root against the ol’ home team.
While it suffered all these disadvantages, our team still managed to slow the opponents’ advance, holding it back even as the refs continued to give the home team a new set of downs for only marginal advances.
Yes, Republicans did make a few mistakes along the way, but they were playing against a team which plays by its own rules. And even under those rules, that team still had to fight to score a touchdown. With today’s vote, Senate Democrats give their team a new first down, but they still haven’t yet crossed the goal line. They may be on the one-yard line, but other teams have made it that far and failed to score. We can still block them yet.
For those who think Senate Republicans haven’t been doing their job, consider this: President Obama wanted to sign health care reform before the August congressional recess. Even if the Democrats vote on it today, he won’t be signing it before Christmas.
Let’s not blame the GOP for minor errors in a game where the Democrats had many easy opportunities to score and where Republicans had no chance of victory. Senate Republicans may not have played the best defense they could, but, in the end, they proved to pretty solid given the forces arrayed against them.
Just look at the lengths to which the Democrats had to join to pass a bill in a legislative chamber where they hold 60% of the seats.
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Maybe all the self-loathing the Left has taught Americans in general to do has rubbed off too much on Republicans. Republicans are too quick to blame our own when things go wrong, pointing fingers at each other even when (1) we succeed much more than we should given the circumstances (40 in the Senate and being significantly in the minority in the House), (2) the other side is the one that has to resort of shameful tactics, and, most importantly, (3) the game is still going on.
Right now, the Republicans have reason to be happy on two fronts: the bill might still go down, and the Democrats are going to be punished mightily for their crappy bill. In the House, it barely passed before. Without the unlikely concession to Bart Stupak, he and LA Republican Cao will almost certainly vote against the bill. If everyone votes the same as before, we’d only need to flip one more vote. Some of the ten (I think it was ten) other pro-lifers who voted for the bill before only because of the Stupak Amendment could easily flip to vote against. The question is whether some who voted against the bill before would vote for it now. Some will no doubt get a lot of pressure to do so, but when polls on the bill have opposition to the bill at 60% or more, who wants to explain why they originally voted against the bill and then voted for it? For the majority whip to ask a House member in a red or even purple district to vote for this bill is like asking a friend to eat lint.
It would be a horrible thing for America if this bill passes, and Republicans can’t view its passage as anything else no matter how much it helps them. Even so, the Democrats would be committing political suicide by passing this thing.
Allahpundit had a good post on HotAir the other day about McConnell’s strategy the other day, providing a good counterpoint to the Republicans-are-messing-up argument.
Comment by chad — December 23, 2009 @ 8:14 am - December 23, 2009
I commend them on holding firm with the 40 however I have to say there had to have been MORE they could have done because I watched those D’s in the minority and they held up EVERYTHING that didn’t embarrass them ie: the war votes.
Comment by Jaded — December 23, 2009 @ 8:16 am - December 23, 2009
What happened to reading every word and every page of this monterousity of a bill on the Senate floor? Is that too much of an inconvenience for these Senators who want to get home in time to enjoy their Christmas cookies hot out of the oven ?
There are a lot of Americans inconvenienced right now who don’t have jobs and are angry that a tone deaf administration and Congress are trying to foist bad legislation taking over 1/6 of our economy and destroy the greatest healthcare system in the world.
They should be right there ’till the very end doing every thing possible to obstruct this bill and project our anger for us, its why we sent them there. It ain’t over ’till its over and all stops are pulled.
Not to mention there are a lot of good American men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan right now who fight to the very end and who won’t be joining their families this holiday season.
McConnell and the rest of the GOP Senate didn’t do enough and basically raised the white flag in order to catch an early flight out to enjoy some egg nog by the fireplace.
Comment by Blazer — December 23, 2009 @ 8:36 am - December 23, 2009
You can’t unscramble eggs. Woulda, coulda, shoulda is a fool’s errand.
BUT …… if I hear anything about “the will of the Senate” and “now, we must come together” I will put that Republican on my “to be defeated” list.
In the years before the Civil War, the comity in the Senate was less than agreeable. Frankly, we are in the midst of a velvet revolution and any politician who “goes along to get along” is a traitor to the Constitution and the free market system.
Comment by heliotrope — December 23, 2009 @ 9:49 am - December 23, 2009
Its all down to the actions of one Republican… Olympia Snowe. She knew that voting it out of committee would mean it would be passed.
Comment by Andrew Ian Dodge — December 23, 2009 @ 9:53 am - December 23, 2009
“t’s all down to the actions of one Republican… Olympia Snowe. She knew that voting it out of committee would mean it would be passed.”
Indeed, and I think Snowe is “gonna have a lot of ‘splaining to do” to her constituents in coming months. Snowe won with 74% of the vote in 2006, but that’s the last time that’ll happen. If (or, more likely, when) things go south in the next two years, watch for primary challenges to Snowe to sprout like Maine blueberries in July.
Comment by MarkJ — December 23, 2009 @ 10:05 am - December 23, 2009
The error’s the Republicans made came in allowing Franken to steal his Senate seat. That triggered Specter becoming a Democrat, and gave them 60 seats. If the Republicans fought harder for the Minnesota seat, Specter would never have switched sides, and this would not be on the path to becoming law.
However, once they had 60 votes, this became a foregone conclusion. And honestly, you can’t blame Olympia Snowe – I don’t think that she, or anyone else, could have imagined that Democrats would be so suicidal.
Who could have imagined the Democrat’s breaking all of Obama’s campaign promises to get this done? Who could have imagined Ben Nelson being a traitor to his self-described cause celebre? Who could have imagined that Lincoln, Dorgan, Bayh, Warner, Landrieu, McCaskill, etc… would ignore what is best for their re-election bids to side with Harry Reid?
Granted, an argument can be made that at the end of the day a Democrat is a Democrat, and they will always be about expanding the government and spending money. However, that completly defies logic, and it is really hard to reconcile some of the decisions that many Democrats have made to get this to 60 votes.
Comment by Chris — December 23, 2009 @ 10:13 am - December 23, 2009
With respect to the Franken-Coleman race, I remain disappointed with fellow conservatives here in my state who refused to vote for Coleman because he wasn’t sufficiently conservative. Do I wish I had had a Coburn-DeMint type conservative to vote for last election? Sure. But I have no doubt that were Norm Coleman still in the Senate, he wouldn’t have been the 60th vote for this garbage. Voter fraud and post-election shenanigans may have stolen the election from Coleman, but had a thousand or so conservative Minnesotans not gotten on their high horse and refused to vote for Coleman, Coleman would have still been in the Senate providing the 41st vote against cloture, killing the bill.
RINOs can be annoying, but conservatives in purple/blue states like my own ought to back off on their demands for ideological purity. There’s a time to oppose the RINOs, but when you have the chance to keep Al Franken from being your senator, you gotta take it.
Comment by chad — December 23, 2009 @ 10:58 am - December 23, 2009
Chad: Lesson learned!
Comment by Steven E. Kalbach — December 23, 2009 @ 11:19 am - December 23, 2009
Great point Chad. It’s easy to say how bad RINO’s are when you are in traditionally red states, but when you are in certain parts of the country it is just not practical to refuse to support RINO’s in order to get true conservative candidates.
And, for all the flack that RINO’s like Collins, Snowe, Graham, McCain, etc… get, they have held firm and have not betrayed the country as have their “moderate” Democratic counterparts.
In certain parts of the country, RINO’s are the only candidates that can win. For example, is Chris Christie an ideal Republican? No. But, was he the best chance the Republicans had to beat Corzine? Absolutely. So, while it would be great to get 60 conservatives in the Senate and 218 in the house, that is not feasible. Conservatives cannot win statewide elections in about 20 states in the Union.
As a result, the key should be promoting conservattives in states like Arkansas and Indiana, and building the majority by getting the most conservative RINO’s possible in states like Delaware and Pennsylvania.
Comment by Chris — December 23, 2009 @ 11:34 am - December 23, 2009
Republicans are too quick to blame our own when things go wrong, pointing fingers at each other even when (1) we succeed much more than we should given the circumstances (40 in the Senate and being significantly in the minority in the House), (2) the other side is the one that has to resort of shameful tactics, and, most importantly, (3) the game is still going on.
Actually, I don’t think this is a negative thing. The hallmark of conservativism is self-responsibility, and that means when things go wrong, the first place we should look is in the mirror. It’s easy to blame external circumstances and take no responsibility, but then we would be like the infantile Barack Obama.
The key is degree — or, put differently, one must be aware of the line between self-reflection and self-immolation.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — December 23, 2009 @ 11:46 am - December 23, 2009
@6: Indeed, and I think Snowe is “gonna have a lot of ’splaining to do” to her constituents in coming months.
You think?
Maine polls shows support for Obama plan, public option
Comment by torrentprime — December 23, 2009 @ 3:20 pm - December 23, 2009
What I think is amazing is that the Republicans held it off THIS long! This should have passed in August. The reality is that elections have consequences. And they were really crappy for our side. But, out of the ashes will come a landslide in 2010 for the Republicans and conservatives.
Comment by Mark J. Goluskin — December 23, 2009 @ 5:06 pm - December 23, 2009
Had Republicans of 2001 – 2008 not acted like Democrats, they would still hold a solid majority. Those buffoons deserve their fair share of the credit for this mess.
Comment by Banzel — December 23, 2009 @ 5:25 pm - December 23, 2009
Football analogies… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz… (head clunks keyboard)
I just want to know this: Why aren’t GOP Senators doing EVERYTHING possible to stop this incredible monstrosity… including demanding a full reading of the 2000+ page monstrosity on the Senate floor, interspersed with quorum calls where possible?
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — December 23, 2009 @ 8:04 pm - December 23, 2009
The unmatched Peter Schiff on some of the reasons GreidCare is so awful:
http://europac.net/externalframeset.asp?from=home&id=17895&type=schiff
RTWT.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — December 23, 2009 @ 8:15 pm - December 23, 2009
Yeah, I figured Dan lost some gays with the football analogies. Rather surprised he did that. Had to go back and make sure it wasn’t Bruce.
Now to your statement above, Lindsay Grahmnesty is having the South Carolina AG look over the bill to see if it’s unconstitutional. I think it goes without saying, but I suppose it’s best to make it O-ficial.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — December 23, 2009 @ 8:27 pm - December 23, 2009
If there’s one thing that pleases me right now as a Republican, it’s that the lines are very clearly drawn. I certainly don’t want this thing to pass, but if final passage of this incredibly unpopular bill occurs with no Republican votes, Republicans will have reason to be proud, not ashamed, of their unwillingness to cross over to support this garbage. The only reward for bipartisanship for Republicans is a pat on the back from liberals, and who wants liberal germs on their back?
I’m not sure what mayhem House rules allow to the minority, but as we all know, there are things that can be done in the Senate, and I imagine it will come back to the Senate before it’s all over. It’s pretty unlikely that the House is just going to simply take up the Senate bill and pass it. So, I think there will be some opportunities for Republicans to go Animal House on the Senate Dems.
The question that I think needs answering is this: what specifically do Republicans hope to achieve by using the more ballsy methods of slowing down the bill? Is it to drive public opinion powerfully against the bill and thereby scare Democrats into voting against the bill? Or is the hope to somehow stop the process? On the former, I think Republicans have wildly succeeding in getting the public to be solidly against the bill. The frustrating thing though is that the Democrats don’t seem to care, and you can’t really blame Republicans for not expecting Democrats to be politically suicidal. Say what you will about the Democrats, they have historically not been politically suicidal in the way we’re seeing right now. On the latter, being so much in the minority in both houses, it’s really difficult to see how Republicans could have stopped / could stop the process completely. They have been doing a great job slowing it down, forcing the Democrats to push this into an election year. However, I’m not really what they could have done to have killed this. Even forcing the bill to be read only slows it down. Such methods (which I approve of, by the way) ultimately seem to do more to affect public opinion than procedurally kill the bill. And as it is, the bill is very unpopular. If Republicans use controversial Senate tactics, it’s not certain that the bill would become more unpopular than it already is.
Anyway, the pressure has to stay on the (supposedly) conservative Dems. The bill will be killed if all the members who voted against it before understand how changing their vote isn’t a politically viable option and three others switch their votes. (I’m guessing Bart Stupak and Joseph Cao are almost certain to switch their vote without the original Stupak amendment intact.)
Comment by chad — December 24, 2009 @ 12:41 am - December 24, 2009