The political Quote of the Day is a long quote from a post by Dick Polman that must be read in full. Titled “A Tale of Two Elections,” it looks at the 1991 election in Pennsylvania where a candidate clamoring for health care reform used the issue to stir voters up and win his race.
Polman (as usual) doesn’t mince words. He suggests that a)this time health care reform is sandbagging the Democrats b)that if you hold your breath waiting for health care reform to pass this time you might turn blue.
Here’s some of his set up:
Now let’s rewind to Pennsylvania in the autumn of 1991, and the special election to fill the seat vacated by Republican John Heinz, who had been killed in a plane crash. What happened then was the reverse of what appears to be happening now.
Democrat Harris Wofford stumped Pennsylvania with the pledge that he would push hard in favor of health care reform. Erasing a 44-point deficit in the polls, he successfully galvanized angry voters by defining himself as the anti-establishment, anti-incumbent candidate – at a time when the Republicans held the White House. The nation was roiled by a recession, President George H. W. Bush was perceived as being inattentive to domestic concerns – and, most importantly, Wofford argued that Bush’s lack of interest in health care reform was proof that he was out of touch with ordinary people. (Plus, Wofford was greatly aided by his Republican opponent, former U.S. attorney general Dick Thornburgh, who treated the election like a coronation, and was so clueless that, until the eleventh hour, he didn’t know how to pronounce Wofford’s name.)
….In other words, health care reform that year was the electoral insurgents’ magic bullet; after Wofford waxed Thornburgh by 10 points, he declared, “we can’t wait for national health insurance,” and that voters were clearly demanding prompt action. Bush was even prompted to concede that voters “are interested in health care…and all of that.” And as Thornburgh strategist Greg Stevens reportedly lamented after his candidate lost, “We were smacked by a tidal wave…It was driven by economics. Wrapped into that was the anti-incumbency, anti-establishment, anti-Washington sentiment.”
Which raises the question, he writes: why has health care reform now become the rallying cry of anti-establishment insurgent voters “apparently a drag on Democratic fortunes in Massachusetts, a symbol of out-of-touch incumbency?”
Here’s his answer:
One obvious answer: Americans have long harbored contradictory views on the issue. The two elections show the contradiction.
Mindful of the high costs and inequities of private health insurance, people have generally supported the idea of reform. But they’re generally wary about the necessary tradeoffs – giving up something to get something new, paying more now for better benefits down the road, or even paying for it at all. In that 1991 race, health reform was framed only as an aspiration, as a vehicle for disenchanted, anti-establishment voters. Indeed, Wofford never spelled out any health reform legislative proposal; in terms of how reform would actually be structured, he offered few details – mindful, no doubt, that such details might thwart his upward trajectory.
Meanwhile, on that same election day in 1991, the voters of New Jersey gave us a window into the public’s contradictory views. On the one hand, they swept the Republicans into power in the state legislature, because they were ticked off about high state taxes. On the other hand, 80 percent of them voted in favor of a non-binding ballot referendum that urged Bush and the Congress to enact “high quality, comprehensive” national health care…a purely aspirational vote, because there was nothing in the referendum about tradeoffs.
And now, on the eve of the Massachusetts Senate vote, the health care debate is all about the details and the tradeoffs. Worse yet for the Democrats, the details have consumed so much congressional energy that it appears, at least to the angriest motivated voters, that scant time has been spent on addressing the deep recession. Whereas, in 1991, the Pennsylvania Democrats were able to successfully link anger over the recession with anger over the lack of health reform, the Massachusetts Republicans have apparently remixed the formula, redefining voters’ economic anxieties.
There will be plenty of time to interpret the actual election results. But regardless of wins or loses, health reform will continue to hang by a thread. There’s no point in being optimistic about the prospects for passage.
Read his column in its entirety.
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.