Our political Quote of the Day comes from the Financial Times’ Edward Luce who (like Democratic strategist James Carville) suggests that if the health law is struck down by the Supreme Court it could wind up being a plus to Barack Obama’s re-eelction campaign. Here’s part of what he says:
The U.S. Supreme Court deserves a vote of thanks. For three gripping days last week it allowed everyone to think about something other than the Republican primary. Having been distracted by the challenge to Barack Obama’s healthcare law, people will now forget about the court until it drops a bombshell on the 2012 election. Whichever way it rules in June, the election will be affected.
On purely electoral grounds, Obama is likely to benefit more than his opponent. Let us suppose the court takes the dramatic 1930s-style step of striking down Obama’s signature accomplishment – the one on which he has staked most of his political capital (and has yet to get a return). Many seasoned watchers now consider this a probability. They point to the hostile questioning by Anthony Kennedy, the “swing vote” on the nine-member court, who described the law as an “unprecedented” intrusion on liberty.
In the short term it would not much matter whether they struck down the law in part or whole. Even if they just ruled against the individual mandate, which obliges everyone to buy insurance (with government subsidies if necessary) or pay a fine, the backlash is likely to be strong. It might remind people there is anger on the left of America’s spectrum as well as on the right. Much like the birth of “Obamacare,” which sparked Tea Party town hall protests in 2009, its death could mobilize the left.
Obama is already running a meticulously slick campaign. But he is missing the grassroots passion that helped carry him to the White House in 2008. Justice Kennedy may be the only person in America capable of reigniting it before polling day. The judge has already played an influential role in the 2012 contest with his deciding vote in the 2010 Citizens United ruling that opened the sluice gates to unlimited election spending and defined corporations as persons with the same free speech rights. A lot of billionaires have already taken full advantage.
Then, of course, there was the mother of all swing votes in 2000 when Justice Kennedy again tipped the balance 5-4 by voting to close down the Florida recount and thus deliver the presidency to George W. Bush. Democrats have not forgiven the Supreme Court for that ruling. If it strikes down Obamacare, the court would turn itself into an election issue, which would benefit Obama. There is nothing like an inflamed base to bring a campaign alive. The spirit of Franklin Roosevelt could be rekindled, with Obama championing the will of the people against an overweening conservative judiciary.
And if it’s upheld?
What happens if the court votes to uphold Obamacare in June? It does not work quite the same in reverse. To be sure, the conservative temperature would shoot up. Republican strategists and Tea Party activists would realize that they now had one last shot to overturn Obamacare – by retaking the White House in November. After that the law would become fact (its main provisions come into effect in 2014).
Go to the link to read it in its entirety.
On this issue, more than on any others, the existing conventional wisdom(s) will be meaningless. In reality, it’s uncertain how this will play out, no matter what decision comes down. Right now the conventional wisdom that seems to be seeping into much of the punditry is that a defeat will be a huge blow to Obama’s re-election, and a boost to Mitt Romney and the GOP. But as we have seen repeatedly in American politics and 20th-21st century American journalism, a prevailing analytical narrative the assumptions upon which it is based can be rendered inoperative within minutes. And then no one talks about the old conventional wisdom and assumptions anymore. They are swept under the pundity rug, seldom to emerge again unless someone Googles them, but even so pundits are seldom held to their past pronouncements. They just go on to make new, all knowing, often smug pronouncements.
There is one certainty, as I have noted quite often: Democratic liberals are almost guilty of political negligence in the way they have frittered away their advantage on the Supreme Court, staying home to “teach the party a lesson” during key elections. There was a lesson taught — to Democratic Party liberals as the court became increasingly conservative.
If the lesson hasn’t been learned yet, then it may start to sink in if the court axes “Obamacare.” And — maybe — Luce’s analysis about the impact will prove correct. The reason: if Obamacare falls you can expect a lot more laws rooted in the New Deal (and perhaps as far back as Teddy Roosevelt) to all by the wayside in coming years as well.
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.