Mark Steyn nails it:
As I wrote back in the summer, “Put not your trust in Blue Dog Democrats.” It was folly to bet the Republic on the likes of Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln and other “moderates” who are, by definition, trimmers and accommodationists.
By contrast, Barney Frank and the more ambitious Dems are thinking long-term. And, if it’s a choice between getting government health care or keeping Ben Nelson, it’s no contest. Not to keep quoting myself ad nauseam, but as I said to Hugh Hewitt a couple of months back:
I think the administration is willing to take the hit. In other words, to get health care, they would be willing to reduce their majority, and perhaps even lose their majority in the House and the Senate, because they know it’s a game changer. Now to sell that to individual Senators and Congressmen, you’ve got to have something up your sleeve for them… There are strange elements in play here. But they’ve factored into the whole business a potential, I think, a potential significant loss in the year 2010, in next year’s elections.
I’ve been saying for a year now, in NR and NRO, that the object for savvy Dems is to get this thing passed in whatever form because, once you do, there’s no going back. Kim Strassel in yesterday’s Journal gets it:
So why the stubborn insistence on passing health reform? Think big. The liberal wing of the party—the Barney Franks, the David Obeys—are focused beyond November 2010, to the long-term political prize. They want a health-care program that inevitably leads to a value-added tax and a permanent welfare state. Big government then becomes fact, and another Ronald Reagan becomes impossible. See Continental Europe.
Just so. And that’s worth whatever hit they have to take in 2010. Every time I make the point, someone says, oh, Jim Webb this or Byron Dorgan that, or have you see Harry Reid’s numbers in Nevada? Oh, please. We’ve just seen what happens when you make Ben Nelson your Maginot Line. The Dems are thinking strategically; the Republicans are all tactics.
Which is why, dear friends, we have to fight it out in 2010 as a People vs Powerful battle. I lay it out a bit over at Nevada News and Views as it relates directly to Nevada and Harry Reid, but the template is what we need around the country – and all the way through 2012.
Democrats are expecting to lose some seats next year. They probably think they’ll keep their majority, but they know it will be rough for them – but it will be roughest for the alleged “blue dogs” who represent GOP districts and who are only in office due to fluke elections in 2006 and 2008. Harry, Nancy and Co fully expect to still have their power in 2011 and, working with Obama, continue to implement more and more of their agenda until it becomes unlikely that the GOP will be able to do a complete repeal – especially if Obama is re-elected in 2012. That happens, then even a GOP Congressional majority won’t help us because Obama would veto any repeal/reform attempts.
We have to think anew and act anew. The people are furious with government and in that fury is our opportunity not just to win a few seats, but to score a historic victory which would prevent the further Obamanization of America not just by ending liberal legislative efforts, but by fearlessly exposing the corruption of DC. This, in turn, would give us the best chance to argue for a complete change in 2012. But to do this we need to offer more than just tax cuts and wonkish programs – we need to offer a revolution.
The left has talked itself in to believing that only a few tens of thousands showed up for the summer’s TEA Party in DC – we know how many really showed up. But imagine, my fellow Americans, if we are swearing in a new GOP House majority in January of 2011 while 2 million TEA Partiers demonstrate in favor of root and branch government reform! That is the sort of vision we need – we need to think in terms of a grand overthrow of the current system – and this means not just the Big Government we especially despise, but the Big Corporation which has become toady to Big Government. We have the materials for a shift in American politics – all we have to do is assemble them in to an unbeatable combination.
The left presses for final and complete control over America’s destiny – we must contest them with as grand a vision and a desire for as permanent a victory. Right now, we’re the people armed with knives at a gun fight and its time we woke up to our peril, and to our opportunity.
UPDATE: The real cost of ObamaCare
