Bill Clinton would know, wouldn't he.

"What you can't do, or you can, but you shouldn't do -- is start saying things like we want to set up death panels to pull the plug on grandma."
- President Obama in a Town Hall meeting in Grand Junction Colorado.

“I don't care how low they drive support for this with misinformation. The minute the president signs this bill, his approval will go up. Within a year, when the good things begin to happen, and the bad things they're saying will happen don't happen, approval will explode."
- Former President Bill Clinton on Obama and Health Care reform

If anyone knows how this works it’s Bill Clinton. No House Republican voted for Clinton’s 1993 economic package. In the Senate, Republicans hacked away and what was left survived only because Al Gore cast the tie breaking vote to pass it. Despite all of the Republican doomsayers, the Clinton package kicked off eight years of prosperity and created the surplus that Bush would later squander.

Now it is Obama’s turn with health care.

Rather than making an honest effort to work out policy differences and create a stronger bill, Republicans are more focused on winning points with their base. Their goal seems to be to defeat the reform not because it is bad, but because a Democrat has proposed it.

In his book “The Waxman Report: How Congress Really Works,” Henry Waxman (D-CA) states again and again, the best legislation has input and support from both parties. Despite his reputation as a hard knuckle partisan fighter, he attributes every major success he has had to working with Republicans, even when he was in the minority.

But here we are about to institute the biggest social reform since the 1965 Civil Rights Acts, without any Republican support. Obama has tried to reach out to members of the other Party, but they have responded by stirring up rage in the darker corner s of society with exaggerations like “Death Panels.”

There are two reasons for their reaction that have little to do with Obama. First, the Republican response is a natural end of the Gingrich revolution. Second there are no leaders on the Republican side to negotiate with.

When the party of Hugh Scott became the party of Newt Gingrich, partisan loyalty took over and kicked the art governing to the side. Gingrich and his successors did everything to make sure their members toed the party line. They recruited candidates not for their skills, but for their loyalty and ability to follow orders.

Now, without anyone in the White House to direct them, Republicans seem unable to come up with any ideas of their own. They were unable to come up with an alternative health care proposal –even after they said they would – and they proposed a four page budget alternative to Obama’s stimulus proposal that lacked any numbers. So with no original ideas all they have is scare tactics. It is a sad sight to see the party of Lincoln and the Cooper Union speech become the party of Sarah Palin and Death Panels.

The second reason Obama has not had any luck with a bi-partisan approach is the party leadership has been compromised by the Bush administration. There is no one left to negotiate with. In normal years, John McCain, as the Presidential candidate who lost, would be the spokesperson for the loyal opposition. His Vice Presidential candidate would a natural workhorse carrying the water for the party and taking over – while preparing for a run in four years.

But this is not a normal year by any means.

Sarah Palin has finished the implosion that started when she asked “What do you mean?” when asked about the Bush doctrine. No one, except the most red meat conservative listens to her anymore. McCain also is too damaged to negotiate. By picking Palin as his VP choice he ruined any credibility he had for sound judgment. In addition when he suspended his campaign to deal with the economic crisis the only thing he succeeded in doing was showing how weak and ineffectual he actually is. The other Republican leaders are also off the scene or are too compromised. Bush has tactfully retired to his ranch and said little or nothing. Cheney is busy fighting to salvage his legacy. Everyone else is too out of touch with the current generation of Republicans to matter.

So with no adult supervision, Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh call the shots. These people have no vested interest in governance. They can stir up town hall meetings by pandering to the dark fears of a small segment of society because they have no responsibly beyond bringing in the ratings for their sponsors. Without Rove and Bush telling them what to say, they are now out of control. The media infrastructure that Rove, Gingrich created to shill the conservative message is like the monster who broke out of the laboratory and is running wild through the village.

So if Clinton is right, and Health Care reform passes, and none of the dire predictions come true, and good things actually start to happen, the Republicans are in a bind. Their legislators, programmed for blind obedience and partisanship won’t be able to admit they were wrong. And after getting it wrong on virtually every major issue in the last 17 years from Iraq, the economy, social issues, and deregulation, the Party will loose its remaining credibility. Like the boy who cried wolf the Republicans will not be believed by voters.

The only way to save themselves is to come up with new ideas. But after the lobotomy of the Gingrich and Rove years, the party simply doesn’t have the ability to do that. This failure will lock them into minority status for the next generation. In the mean time, America looses out on all the good things that can happen when both parties function and can work together to solve our nation’s problems.