If the Democrats win big in 2008 partially due to the furor over President George Bush’s impending veto of a bill to fund children’s health care, they can thank the “little people.”
Kids like a 12-year-old boy who the Democrats have picked to give the Democrats’ answer to the President’s weekly radio address tomorrow.
And expect this to be the opening volley in young faces and voices putting a “human interest” spin on a veto that could be the worst political relations blunder since the Republicans shut down Congress after disputes with President Bill Clinton:
A 12-year-old boy who received life- saving care through U.S.-subsidized health insurance will speak for Democrats tomorrow in their response to President George W. Bush’s weekly radio address.
Democrats chose Graeme Frost of Baltimore, instead of the lawmakers or governors who usually provide the party’s Saturday- morning broadcast, to press what they see as a political advantage from Bush’s vow to veto expansion of a kids’ health-care program.Congress is sending to Bush legislation, given final approval yesterday, that would add $35 billion over five years to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Bush, who calls the measure a step toward “federalization” of health care, will veto the legislation even though Republican lawmakers in close re-election campaigns will come under pressure if they stand by him, Bush press secretary Dana Perino said today.
“No doubt that it’s difficult, especially politically” when “there are advertisements running in your district saying that you don’t care about children, which is preposterous,” Perino told reporters at the White House. “They have to think about the principles here.”
The Senate passed the measure yesterday with enough Republican backing to override a veto; the House fell about two dozen votes short earlier in the week. The measure would more than double funding for the program, letting states enroll an additional 3.8 million uninsured kids.
Expect Frost to dramatize the issues since his address will get substantial national and international notice, adding another story to the negative imagery surrounding the White House and representing another nail into the coffin of the image of “compassionate conservatism”:
Democrats are counting on Frost, who was hospitalized for traumatic brain injury after a 2004 car accident, to deliver the message that Bush is picking the wrong fight.
“My message is that the president needs to sign this bill because there are many, many kids who depend on this,” Frost said today in a telephone interview. “There are many kids who may not have survived without this.”
In a transcript of the radio addressed provided by Democrats, Frost said his hard-working parents “always make sure my sister and I have everything we need, but the hospital bills were huge.”
Editors like to put human-interest faces on issues because readers relate to those kinds of stories. At the least, expect some sound-bytes and prominent display — which will push the issue more to the forefront. Yet another Rush Limbaugh verbal missile (and controversy) could follow but it will be hard to demonize a child (although that was once said about anyone mocking ailing actor Michael J. Fox, too).
Writes The Politico’s Martin Kady:
The way Democrats see it, President Bush’s promised veto of the children’s health insurance bill is a gift from the political gods.
To that end, Democrats are planning to slowly play out their hand on this issue, taking their time with a veto override vote while vowing more votes on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program in the coming weeks.
In fact, thanks to a temporary extension of SCHIP placed in the continuing resolution to temporarily fund the government at the start of the new fiscal year Monday, Democrats have until at least mid-November to keep children’s health front and center.
Kady also notes that this issue is a big one with independent voters — the voters the GOP seems to be alienating on a host of issues these days…voters who helped give the Democrats control of Congress, but not on a massive scale. Issues like this — punctuated by human interest stories about children who would have or have been helped by such funding — could increase the Demmies’ margin even more:
According to a poll conducted by Democratic research firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, 58 percent of independent voters say they would back a Democratic congressional candidate who votes to expand SCHIP. And numbers like that have led the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to run ads in dozens of districts held by Republican incumbents, chastising them for voting against the program.
“Democrats who have played politics on the war have now turned to domestic policy. … They’re used to doing the politics first and the government second,†said Rep. Thomas Reynolds (R-N.Y.). “We see the gamesmanship being played here.â€
Reynolds, like most Republicans interviewed about SCHIP, was quick to assert that he favors extension of the program, but says Republicans simply need to stand on conservative principles and avoid expanding health care to families that make 300 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $60,000 for a family of four.
That problem is that this approach likely won’t work.
It has been shown repeatedly that issues that go beyond polemics, partisan attacks and debating points and take on a “human face” due to media coverage that takes the issue out of the abstract and puts it into human terms (even if it is not entirely accurate in some cases) makes the issue less abstract — and moves people.
And what could be more moving than a “plight” story about a child?
The GOP could stand with the White House on conservative principles on this issue and the bill could never be signed.
But it’s likely that on Election Day some of the Republicans who have stood with the White House may find that the barge they were standing on has sunk.
ADDITIONAL RELATED NEWS STORIES:
—Google Comment by a childrens’ health care advocate.
—The great debate on kid’s health care
—David Broder says Republicans are “following Bush over a cliff.”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.