Insurance-Salesman-in-Chief

The Senate has accepted that a public healthcare option is unreachable. Polling has increasingly shown that it’s not popular among the majority of respondents. And a president is at risk of demolishing his entire term and burying the possibility of reelection for daring to press on against the rising tide of opposition. Some of my friends on the extreme left would call that heroic. I call it just plain dumb. Politics, they say, is the art of the possible. It’s about constantly seeking out a coalition of 50% of the population plus one person. It’s a simple matter of math and right now, Mr. President, you don’t have the votes. You don’t have the popular support. And you don’t have the political good-will left to twist arms in Congress.

With that said, the president does have an opportunity, here. He has the opportunity to get the 70 or 80% solution. He has the opportunity to do what really great politicians have made their careers doing – Compromise. Insisting that reform must be all one thing or all the other is a sure recipe for failure. Follow the example of Speaker O’Neill and President Reagan on taxes in the early 80s. If the study of politics teaches us anything it’s that nothing good lies down the road of absolutism. Right now, both parties have the ability to walk away with something approximating a win. Wait too long and the moment passes… And then a pox on both your houses.