The Sunshine Empire

Well I’ll be flying to the west coast tomorrow so please excuse me if there is only the Twitter feed updates post for Friday. I’ll have plenty to discuss once I’m in Portland though. I’ll be interested to take the political pulse in Oregon as opposed to the hyper conservative area that I do live in.

The health care debate is getting to be too much to put up with. It’s fascinating to me that so many that consider themselves followers of the tea party movement have no issue with taking holstered guns to a Presidential health care reform forum, and have no compunction against painting posters of the President of the United States like Adolph Hitler while they scream “SOCIALIST” but get so offended with the term “tea bagger.” They also now bring signs to town hall meetings that say, “Death To Obama.” Now they as a group are eager to be as vicious as possible in this debate but seem to get their feelings hurt like schoolchildren when the other side punches back just as hard. Intimidation tactics that don’t work seem to shock them like someone pushing on a door marked “pull.” Also, I am lumping the entire group together until someone shows me a tea bag enthusiast at a Democratic town hall meeting without a Obama = Hilter sign, not screaming over a member of Congress “SOCIALIST LIAR,” not making allusions to murdering the democratically elected President of the United States, and not claiming that Obama wants to kill Sarah Palin’s baby.

Another factor that I’ve found interesting about the health care reform debate is how many conservatives and Republicans think they are simply following an easy template from 1993 to make the Republican take over of Congress in 1994 happen again. They see Bill Clinton having lost the health care debate in 1993, then see the Republicans taking control of the House and Senate in 1994 and in their simple minds think all they have to do is defeat whatever bill comes from Congress and sit back and just wait for the Congress to fall into their laps. Well those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, except Republicans show a staggering lack of historical understanding and will not repeat it. The political climate was in no way the same in 1993 as it is now. Sure there was a newly minted young Democrat in office and there is the health care debate. Yet the election of 1992 despite winning had no Senate coattails for Clinton for the Democrats. The House had been under Democratic control for 40 years and it was rocked by the House banking scandal, and House Ways and Means chairman Dan Rostenkowski being indicted for corruption. In addition to a different situation completely in the House, Bill Clinton had won the Presidency in a plurality in 1992, not the win by 10 million votes that President Obama achieved. But lets also look at the Senate for 2010. To take over the Senate the Republicans would have to win 11 seats from the Democrats to take control, but in their landslide year of 1994 they only won 8. To retake the Senate they would have to blow that number out of the water. Now the party in power in the White House always loses seats in the first midterm of a President, and Democrats are now at critical mass in terms of holding seats in districts that John McCain won. So they will lose seats. But the Democrats now hold almost a two to one advantage in the house, which is much more ground than they had to make up in 1994.

So as you see if you bother with the vagaries of history it becomes clear that you cant assume that health care reform alone will bring down Obama. But keep thinking that.

Related posts:

1. I’m Sick Of The Health Care Reform Argument
2. Health Care Reform Enters The Red Zone
3. The Realities Of Health Care Reform And Dating Megan Fox
4. On The Coming West Coast Swing And Health Care Proxy Wars
5. Lying Works In The Fight Against Health Care Reform