The news of late on the president's agenda has been stalls and difficulties; a much ballyhooed July 18 Washington Post poll found public approval of the president's handling of health care, his top priority, dropping below 50 percent -- to 49 -- for the first time. Never mind that the president hasn't, technically, released a health-care reform plan, choosing instead to articulate central principles and endorse one specific mechanism, a public insurance option.
Pundits are also happy to ignore the poll's good news for the president, mainly because it is old news: Obama is still the most trusted figure in Washington, more than either his congressional allies or his opposition, and his personal approval rating remains strong at 59 percent, if diminished from post-inaugural heights.
It's not that the president's agenda is overly ambitious, despite cries of "liberal overreach" -- a mysterious creature that hasn't been seen in the White House since it slunk out in 1968, never to return. Instead, the vagaries of congressional procedure are slowing its progress. Dueling health-care bills have emerged in each chamber of Congress, even from different committees, confusing the public (and politicos) about what, exactly, is in each bill and how they would affect the day-to-day practice of health-care delivery. The lack of a unified message provides openings for Republicans to attack the half-finished legislation emerging from the process -- criticizing, for instance, the high price of one bill before cost-cutting measures were incorporated -- and to go after the president for positions he hasn't even adopted.
We've heard this story before, during the debates last winter over the stimulus. As Congress actually went about putting the bill together, each piece of the bill was fought over until it seemed that the entire program was contingent on an apocryphal mouse supported by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. As public support for the stimulus started to dwindle, the White House took charge, putting the president front and center to sell the bill while top aides scrambled around the Capitol, buttonholing Congress members and staff to push the bill over the top.
The resulting bill was hardly ideal, either in size or composition, but it represents a significant victory for the administration and will continue to have an increasingly beneficial effect on the economy as actual spending increases through the next year. The stimulus continues to remain popular, with only 35 percent of Americans lacking confidence that it will create jobs -- the rest maintain varying levels of confidence that it will create jobs despite worsening economic indicators.
There are already signs the administration is returning to its stimulus playbook: bringing the president's message to the fore -- he's "taking the baton," you see -- and charging Republicans, truthfully enough, with obstruction. The opening for this last move comes courtesy of GOP promises that a defeat of health-care reform would "break" the president and be his "Waterloo," suggesting to even the most charitable interpreters that Republicans would rather win a political victory than solve a pressing public-policy issue. Their urgent public demands for delay are, as many have pointed out, synonymous with calling for the effort to be defeated.
Therein lie the seeds of Obama's victory. Even though the morass of plans combined with Republicans' dire warnings of socialism (no) and rationing (we're already rationing) has led to public concern, the same polls still indicate an overwhelming urge to do something about the problem of health care. The fact that the Republicans don't have a credible plan for fixing health care, and don't much want to come up with one, will be their undoing.
The question, though, is will we get a plan that works. Like Jon Chait, I'm sanguine that some sort of health-care bill will pass. But the Democrats can't afford to have a health-care bill undermined by the compromises necessary to see it pass. Economic stimulus is, by its nature, a blunt instrument: Make up demand during a recession, and if it can be done in such a way that offers long-term benefits, good. But health-care reform is a process. The mechanism, likely an exchange and a public insurance plan, must work well and quickly without damaging existing coverage; it must be deficit neutral and bend the curve, as policy wonks say, toward cost-cutting. In other words, it must be near-miraculous -- or at least strong enough to campaign on.
For the administration, this will mean exerting greater discipline over reluctant centrist senators and Blue Dog representatives, especially convincing them to abandon their refusal to consider even the most commonsense tax increases. It will require a willingness to jettison most of the Republican support the administration covets (although not ignoring their ideas or their lackluster participation in the legislative process) during the all-important conference negotiations to reconcile the two final health-care bills. Ultimately, Obama must convince Democrats in Congress that his paradigm of long-term thinking, decoupled from the defensive crouch of Democrats past, is a winning one.
The president is typically a pragmatic leader, willing to take what he can get, when he can get it, and that tack has served him well thus far. But on health-care reform, the pinnacle of the White House's domestic agenda, he cannot afford to take merely what he can get. Defeat on this issue above all others would indeed be a major setback for his agenda. Perversely, that's a reason for optimism -- the president isn't known for flubbing the big moments.
