How Democrats are winning 2010, for Republicans

I have just two hopeful words for those out-of-power, anxiety-ridden Republicans who see the election year of 2010 as but another troublesome vision: health care.

Congressional Democrats, particularly those in the upper and, here's a rapidly fading cliche, more deliberative chamber, are hanging themselves on the issue, and if they don't complete their suicidal job then voters will be justified in doing it for them.

Health care and its responsible, competent, and, dare I say it, dear Democrats, progressive reform: that's the issue in 2009 which will shape the outcome of 2010 and beyond.

American voters may be ambivalent or undecisive as to the best way to effect a cleaner environment or better-educated young minds or improved relations with the world, but on health-care reform there is stunningly little debate or division: Overall, three-fourths of the electorate want and damn-well expect it and, get this, so do half of rank-and-file Republicans.

The other day the Politico's Jim VandeHei and Jonathan Martin published an expansive analysis of Republicans' come-back prospects -- "of a political resurgence over the next year," which "top Republicans" are beginning to see "faintly" -- and, in my opinion, that analysis, from both the reporters' and GOP's point of view, almost completely missed the mark in one of those proverbial forest-for-the-trees things.

In the clutter of more than 2,000 words about this and that and every other conceivable variable, that of "health" appeared only once: "Polls show that Obama's chief vulnerability is public concern over the soaring deficit. And as the sticker shock of a trillion-dollar-plus health care plan takes hold, these concerns are only likely to grow."

Yet those concerns will grow no matter what. Even assuming this Democratic Congress fails to fashion effective health-care reform, Republicans will run on what the Politico notes as the "bumper-sticker slogan" of Democrats spending too much, taxing too much, and borrowing too much. That one is in the bank; for Democrats, there's no way around it.

But in neglecting responsible health-care reform -- and by that I mean, at a minimum, an earnestly devised "public option" -- Democrats will only compound their problems. They'll be assailed not only from the right and some among the independent center-right for spending too much, but by the left and independent center-left for not spending enough -- on health care.

In short, they'll be squeezed out of the electoral market.

Fundamental health-care reform is no longer one of those issues that voters will simply forget about by Election Day. They live with its unendurable, unreformed consequences of rising costs and increasing inadequacy every day; hence Democrats' customary political trick of bollixing real reform early enough in a non-voting year won't guarantee that voters will have dismissed or forgotten it by late the next. Not on the issue of health care. It just won't work. Not anymore.

For Congressional Democrats, humane, progressive health-care reform is the issue -- left neglected and abused, it's the irate 800-pound gorilla and elephant in the living room and snake in the grass and every other animalistic metaphor of imposing peril and imminent doom. Three yards and a cloud of dust won't work, either; nor will falling back for a lateral pass or yet another nice game of three-card monte.

Am I repeating myself, a trifle louder and louder each day? You bet your uninsured butt I am. Because our hired guns don't seem to be hearing.

In the Senate, especially, they keep droning on about a bipartisan compromise. And here's how that works: Democrats cave on their once-key demand, while Republicans triumphantly insist that any "public plan" is a deal-breaker. OK, and the compromise would be ... ?

You got it! A Republican plan! -- even though a Republican filibuster of authentic health-care reform would be the best thing that ever happened to Democrats; even though Democrats have the budget-reconciliation process available; and even though Democrats have three-fourths of a rather emphatic electorate on their side.

Yeah, Senate Democrats are really behind the eight ball on this one.

But, of course, we know where the compromising and anti-reform Democrats' loyalties really lie -- among the polished brass and finest-grained wood of corporate-penthouse offices in charge of profit-milking, American stagnation and voter betrayal.

So, again, to that other political species that only a month ago was spotted in the wilderness and seen sliding into extinction, I say there is yet vast hope of survival, even proliferation. True, hardly anyone likes or agrees with you, but at this rate, by 2010 rank-and-file Democrats by the millions will be too apathetically exhausted to vote.

And you, dear Republicans, can simply skim the reactionary cream. Congressional Democrats are proving themselves too greedy and self-interested and just plain stupid to know what's best in the long run for either party or country. Their troops won't be enlisted or suckered again; they'll just stay home.