Twenty-Two Pens

Kill the Bill!
- Popular Republican slogan from the past

Twenty-Two
- The Number of pens Barack Obama used to sign health care reform legislation into law.

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed into law the most sweeping social legislation since the 1965 Civil Rights Act. On January 20, 2010, the day after Scott Brown won the Massachusetts special election, this victory did not look possible.

The Republicans are doing what they do best – fight progress. They have decided to go to court to try and overturn health care reform. This means that in many states, Republicans will use tax dollars to stop insurance coverage for newly insured Americans, while at the same time cutting the safety net these uninsured would have to use instead.

All this on the slim chance that the courts will rule, that despite the Constitution’s explicate statement that the government has the right to regulate interstate commerce (which insurance surely is) and government’s broad tax powers, a judge will overturn health care reform, and that judgment would be sustained through multiple appeals.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Knt) is floating a new slogan for the Republican electorate. McConnell is pitching “Repeal and Replace” as the new strategy. We will see how that works out for them. They will spend the rest of the year criss-crossing the country, campaigning to revoke insurance for 35 million Americans. If they succeed they will have to create a bill, which even if passed, wouldn’t have the votes to override an Obama veto.

Republicans are beginning to openly question this approach. As Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said when asked about the possibility of Republicans successfully repealing and replacing the new health care law simply said “The fact is, that’s not going to happen, OK?”

During the final debate Republicans could only talk in abstracts, about the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, the budget deficit and socialism. If your child is ill and uninsured, States Rights and socialized medicine becomes less of an issue, than not being driven into bankruptcy regardless of whether or not your child survives.

On the other hand the Democrats used the opportunity to describe the benefits of reform over and over again. The lesson the Democrats should take from this victory is that the more they talk about what their proposals mean for the average person, the more likely they are to succeed.

This is also the first time since 1972 the “liberal” Democratic party has shown the courage to stand up and fight for what they believe. Since the McGovern debacle Democrats have wrung their hands and headed for the hills whenever faced with a determined opposition who was willing to use the “liberal smear” against them. Whether it was the perceived spinelessness of Jimmy Carter, the triangulation strategy of Bill Clinton, or the string of Presidential candidates from Dukakis to Gore to Kerry who seemed more interested in pander than principle, the Democrats have tried to hide their ideology whenever confronted with the “L-word.” When Democrats have won, it was more because the Republicans overplayed their hand, and less through ideological coherence, principle and party discipline.

The success of health care reform appears to represent a shift for the party. In the beginning of the process it looked like a typical Democratic effort of compromise and appeasement. Many of the “flaws” to the Senate version that were fixed through the reconciliation bill, were the result of the Obama administration’s initial commitment to bi-partisanship. By caving to the demands of the likes of Lieberman, Grassley and Landrieu, the Democrats once again looked like they stood on no principle beyond political victory and no vision beyond the next election.

It wasn’t until after the Scott Brown election when the President stood up to the Republicans at their Congressional retreat in Baltimore that the Democrats began to make a stand. For the first time years the country witnessed a Democratic President willing to stand up to and directly challenge his Republican opponents on their facts and their politics.

Obama’s willingness to take the fight directly to the Republicans not only gave fearful Democrats a template to answer their Republican opponents, but it also showed them the President would fight back to the end. This new willingness to pass reform without the Republicans, made it easier for Pelosi and Reid to hold the “yes” votes in line. They finally knew that they could take a stand and not be undercut by any effort to round up a stray Republican vote.

Only then did the tables begin turn in favor of health care reform.

In politics, you win more often when you stand and fight for something, than when you cave and compromise. After successfully holding their ground on a big issue maybe Democrats will hold on to the courage of their convictions, and move on to solve other major problems in America. They have proven that they can - even as the Republicans attack them and yell “No” from the sidelines.