Matthew Yglesias has a superb piece today responding to the “tea leaves” crowd who predict electoral disaster for the Democrats if health care reform becomes law:
I don’t think the arguments mounted by Pat Caddell and Douglas Schoen that Democrats will face political disaster if they pass health reform hold water. Or, rather, I think they disingenuously fail to consider the alternative. If reform passes, Democrats will almost certainly lose a whole bunch of seats in November. But if reform fails, Democrats will also almost certainly lose a whole bunch of seats in November. At the margin, passing reform helps the party’s prospects in the midterms in my view, but the midterms outlook is just bad and there’s nothing to be done health care-wise at this point to change that.
A larger question any member of congress reading the op-ed ought to ask himself is “so what?” If reform passes and is signed into law, then immediately Barack Obama’s position in history is secured. When people look back from 2060 on the creation of the American welfare state, they’ll say that FDR, LBJ, and BHO were its main architects, with Roosevelt enshrining the principle of universal social insurance into law and Obama completing the initial promise of the New Deal. Members of congress who helped him do that will have a place in history. Nobody’s going to be very interested in a story like “Mike Ross served a bunch of years in Congress and people were impressed with his ability to win a relatively conservative district; he didn’t achieve very much and one day he wasn’t in Congress anymore.”
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