More Than Mandates?

The RNC thinks they have a plan of attack for Barack Obama, but it's pretty thin (They'll be focusing on "undisciplined messaging?" This is the Republican Party?). They should probably just read particular liberal blogs for a couple weeks to get some good opportunities. I've seen some very effective smears there (thanks liberal blogosphere!).

One that actually is effective, and worrisome to me as well, is the appearance of Jim Cooper as a surrogate on health care. Cooper, a Representative from Tennessee, offered an alternative health care plan in 1994 that was more business-friendly, and some claim it led to the torpedoing of the Clinton plan.

I was part of the Clinton White House team on the health care reform issue in 1993/94, and no Democrat did more to destroy our chances in that fight than Jim Cooper. We had laid down a marker very early that we thought universal coverage was the most essential element to getting a good package, saying we were to happy to negotiate over the details but that universality was our bottom line.

Cooper, a leader of conservative Dems on the health care issue, instead of working with us, came out early and said universality was unimportant, and came out with a bill that did almost nothing in terms of covering the uninsured. He quickly became the leading spokesman on the Dem side for the insurance industry position, and undercut us at every possible opportunity, basically ending any hopes we had for a unified Democratic Party position. I was never so delighted to see a Democrat lose as when he went down in the 1994 GOP tide.

This is not a universal view. Brad DeLong offers this:

What Mike Lux, "veteran of the Clinton health care wars," knows--but is very careful not to tell you--is that in 1993-1994 health care reform needed 60 votes in the Senate in order to defeat a Dole-led filibuster, and that Sen. John Breaux (D-LA) was vote 55. "undermin[ing] Clinton's health care plan by... [working] with former Senator and current lobbyist John Breaux" translates as "working on bills that might actually pass the senate."

Mike Lux knows this. He just hopes that his readers don't.

The story of the 1994 debacle has a lot to do with Republican intransigence, a lot to do with Democratic variance of opinion, and a lot to do with Hillary Clinton's bad management style. I don't think you can pinpoint any one individual and shoulder all the blame on them.

I do think that health care is going to have to be forced into the conversation in an Obama Administration. However, labor and progressive groups are showing a great willingness to do so, and legislation like that is certain to come up from the Congress, where we should have a nice advantage, and Obama has actually promised health care reform in his first term. So there are many pressure points here, which is how something like this will get done. On foreign policy, which is somewhat more immune to such pressures, I favor Obama's approach. That's really been it for me all along.