I recently came upon a political artifact from a different time: The 1994 Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Issues Book. A Bible-thick collection of rhetoric and talking points, this was the playbook Democratic operatives thought would sway voters during the ultimately disastrous midterm election of President Bill Clinton's first term.
What might the yellowing pages have to say about the defeat of Clinton's health-care proposal, which contributed to Democrats losing their majorities in both the House and Senate? Disappointingly, almost nothing. When the book was published in March of 1994, health-care reform hadn't failed yet.
In fact, the last effort at comprehensive health-care reform wasn't pronounced dead until Aug. 25, 1994, when Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell announced that Congress would go into the traditional campaign recess without voting on health-care reform. Imagine taking that news home to your constituents.
That's why those who wonder if the 2010 midterms will bring a similar catastrophic defeat for the president's party should stand down a little. It is not just that it is too early to judge the outcome of the next election cycle; it's that this Congress has moved its policy agenda more quickly than its predecessors. Though today's polls don't look amazing for the Democrats, they look even worse for the Republicans, and while the Democrats have plenty of ways to improve their support among the public, Republicans are still stuck for a way to present themselves as a credible alternative.
Ed Kilgore has already looked at some differences: There is no wave of retiring Democratic officeholders to ease the Republican path to office, and the party of Roosevelt is past the upheaval that came with abandoning Southern conservatism -- and many long-standing Democratic districts in the South -- to the Republicans.
Besides these structural advantages, today's Democrats also have more time and political space to do what the '90s Democratic majority never could: pass serious reforms of health care and financial regulation, with the breathing room to campaign on their policies.
The slow drag of health-care legislation through Congress over the past summer gave Republicans the opportunity to raise hell during the August recess, but despite this, feasible proposals took shape on Capitol Hill. Conversely, Clinton's team drafted a bill in private, only introducing it in the fall. When President Obama delivered a congressional address on health-care reform in September, many drew parallels with Clinton's famous health-care speech that same month in 1993. The key difference is that Clinton's speech introduced his bill, while Obama's pushed negotiations on an existing bill forward. Obama has a six-month advantage over Clinton.
This has allowed the administration to largely regain the support it lost during August: A full 57 percent of Americans want health-care reform now. Some 65 percent support the supposedly controversial public insurance option.
Some observers expect health-care reform to be out of Congress by early November -- and that's not overly optimistic. If Congress can accomplish that major step, along with financial regulatory reform and, let's hope, some kind of an energy bill, it will be, along with the stimulus package, a sign to voters that Democrats can actually govern. That was the original message that brought this Congress into office back in 2006: competence.
Conservative Democrats who think maintaining the status quo on health care might be more politically palatable than answering Republican attacks have been undermining the president's agenda, but they are their own greatest threat. Without a signature domestic issue to campaign on -- and health-care reform, even if its impact will be felt later, is the premiere issue of this Congress -- Democrats won't be able to turn out their base. While Democrats in red districts often rely on independent voters, that won't mean much if they can't convince the progressive coalition, especially young people and minorities, to turn out for them.
This year's comparatively speedy approach to legislating doesn't just mean Democrats have the opportunity to come up strong on campaign promises. It also gives them political space. By next summer, before the election, the decks will be clear of major initiatives -- Democratic resources that might have gone to defend policy proposals will be redirected against Republicans. Congressional leadership will have opportunities to schedule a slew of votes to put Republicans in tight spots; with bills whose titles include some combination of "veterans," "children" and "soccer moms." (Well, probably not the last one.) I'd call it crass politicking except that there are good policy reasons why voting against vets and kids are political poison.
Meanwhile, congressional Republicans are still less popular than Democrats and have yet to offer any kind of platform for another shot at running the show. Worse, they are leaderless: By the end of 1993, Republican Whip Newt Gingrich and his team had already brought ethics charges against a speaker of the House that lead to his resignation, and widely publicized the House banking scandal. Today, the Republican Party remains divided and lacks the ability to attract centrist voters, while the Democrats continue to be a relatively unified majority party, with the capacity to stay that way.
Democrats will have an issues book in 2010, too, and the difference between victory and defeat will be whether they are selling a law or spinning a defeated proposal.
