SECOND THOUGHTS ON SPECIFICITY. Some of the comments and the discussion on other blogs on my point about the downside of proposing a lot of policy details in a presidential campaign were quite persuasive. In particular, I thought the argument that in order for Senator Edwards to get out front on the need for a tax increase (which I am certainly in favor of), he had to put some concrete benefit on the other side of the equation, not a vague promise to be defined later, was strong. The other good point is that the Edwards health plan really does have some brilliant and innovative elements, which could not be identified just by referring to other options on the table. Let's just hope those elements stand up to the brutal worst-case-scenario questioning of the oppo researchers. But one point in the comments sent me back to The System, David Broder and Haynes Johnson's book on the politics of the Clinton health plan. (Incidentally, don't let Broder's recent wankery deter you from reading this fine book.) Nicholas Beadrot referred to an old Yglesias post that argued that "one of the reasons the Clinton health care initiative was derailable was that Clinton campaigned and won and a promise to devise a plan for universal health care, not on a particular plan," and that the best way to enact universal health coverage is to campaign on a plan, be attacked for it viciously, win, and then enact it. Matt commented himself here.
