This blog has often mentioned the fabled "Kristol memo" -- the strategy document penned in 1993 by William Kristol that Republicans to kill Clinton's health reform plan "sight unseen" if they ever wanted to hold the speaker's gavel again. But since the Kristol memo was written before the advent of Google, few folks still have a copy of it. Greg Sargent, however, did some spadework and came back with the whole document. You can read it here. One point: The Kristol memo emerged at a very particular moment: Heath care reform was already dying. Kristol's first paragraph argued that Clinton's "support has now sharply eroded" and cited poll numbers showing that health reform had begun with a 32 percent margin of approval and fallen to a three percent margin of approval. The trend, in other words, was clear. As such, the Kristol memo was not about killing the president's bill: That outcome was preordained. Rather, it was about forestalling Clinton's tendency to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Faced with legislative loss, Kristol said, "the Administration has generally preferred to bargain and compromise with Congress so as to achieve any victory it can." That was the outcome Kristol feared. "The plan should not be amended," he warned. "It should be erased." There's a political logic to Kristol's argument. But it relies on one central premise that was true then and might -- or might not -- prove false later this year: The President's health care reform plan was unpopular. Given that state of affairs, Kristol wanted Republicans to emphasize their interests as campaigners rather than legislators and avoid any attempts to negotiate a "least bad" compromise with Clinton. But if Obama's heath reform plan is not unpopular and public opinion is firmly on the side of passage, Kristol's advice will have little relevance. Related: Bill Kristol's Thug Life.
