For many years, it's been centrist and conservative-leaning senators who have been scoring legislative victories by digging in their heels, so this represented a quite dramatic turnabout. It is difficult to remember the last time that progressives won a legislative victory by laying down firm demands and sticking to them. In the House, the Congressional Progressive Caucus has found its feet, too, and is locked in a final battle with conservative Democrats over the shape of a public option.
At the end of last week, Sen.Olympia Snowe of Maine, the lone Republican that Democrats are still trying to woo, said that she couldn't support a bill that had a public option with an opt-out provision. Snowe preferred a public option that would be "triggered" into being by a failure by the insurance industry to meet certain benchmarks.
But Reid and the leadership faced this basic math: There is only one Snowe and there are 60 members of the Democratic caucus. If just a few Democrats abandoned the bill, it would fall short even with Snowe's support.
This battle for healthcare is one thing that gives me hope that the pessimism that animated my post yesterday about the power vacuum created by a supine congress and filled by executive power is unwarranted. If a cohort of principled progressives in congress win here, perhaps it will empower them to address the abuse of executive power problem. The imbalance in our system of checks and balances is by far the most important issue the republic faces going forward. But if a victory in healthcare is the first step toward congress reasserting itself, I'm fine with it.
So maybe the good guys in congress are waking up here, growing a congressional spine that will give them the confidence to challenge the executive branch on this issue as well. It would be better in a way if Congress demanded restrictions on executive power from the administration rather than if the administration just stripped itself of the Cheney Bush powers. The point isn't just for the executive branch to voluntarily weaken itself, but for congress to vigorously reassert itself and reclaim its traditional prerogatives and oversight responsibilities.
The way progressives in both the senate and house have flexed their muscles on the healthcare issue has been encouraging–far more encouraging than what we've seen from Obama so far. I know we haven't netted this fish and pulled it into the boat, but it's hooked and it's halfway reeled in. And, yes, we don't know for sure what kind of a fish we have until we get it into the boat when it's reported out of conference. But things are looking pretty good. Conventional wisdom a month or so ago held that the public option was dead because there was not enough votes, and nobody expected the Progressives to stand tough because the Dems needed a victory, any victory, more than they needed a good bill.
I first felt that things were shifting in a positive direction when I posted about it on 9/16, and things have played out as I hoped they would then–better even. There has been a very significant shift in momentum, and while the opposition I'm sure is regrouping and looking for ways to counterattack, all that nonsense during the August recess seems so very long ago and far away.
Regarding the future of the republic: the midterm elections will be a critical benchmark. We're going to be seeing a lot in the MSM about a GOP resurgence. There will be a lot tea-leaf reading after this gubernatorial race in Virginia, etc. and about this public opinion poll or that suggests Dems are losing ground. But the only thing that matters are the fundamentals, and there are two that trump all other considerations: the economy and the self-destruction of the Republican Party.
Is it possible that ordinary Americans, the ones who are unemployed or feeling anxious about their jobs, will turn to obstructionist Republicans in 2010? The Dems are vulnerable for the way they structured their bailout boondoggle, but does any sane person think that the Republicans would have done it differently or better? The problem with the bailout is that it was Dems acting too much like Republicans Whatever. Intense economic anxiety trumps culture-war concerns. Obama, no matter what FOX says about him, is moderate to conservative in both policy and style, and I think people get that.
But an equally important fundamental The Republicans have largely discredited themselves with their crazy extremism so that now even Newt is positioned on the leftward wing of the party. I know the opposition usually wins seats back in the midterm, but we're in an unprecedented situation here, and unless the Republicans figure out how to appeal better to the mushy middle, I don't see them continuing to lose rather than gain ground. But I've been wrong about that before.
In any event, since I'm feeling more optimistic today than I did yesterday, I'm allowing myself to hope that Progressives, who might just be at the beginning of feeling a strength and confidence they haven't felt in a long time, might just take advantage of the opening the self-destructing Republicans are giving them. I don't think the Republicans can ever be underestimated because of the enormous power of the entrenched interests they represent, but these entrenched interests are paying the price for aligning themselves with the crazies on the right. And this gives those on the left at least a small window of opportunity to push forward. Here's hoping they see it and jump through it.
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