One thing you often hear is that members of congress don’t like it when you question their “good faith” or “motives.” So it’s good to see Evan Bayh clarify that his approach to health care is dominated by cowering in fear for political reasons rather than any policy considerations:
Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, said many Democrats felt “unease that we did not have a strategy” to answer the criticism coming from Republican members of Congress and Republican consultants like Frank I. Luntz, an expert on the language of politics.
One question to ask is why Bayh feels it’s helpful to share this sentiment with The New York Times. Suppose, instead, that he had this thought and kept it to himself. Would any of Indiana’s citizens have been worse off? Any of America’s? Any of the six billion people on the planet? Who, exactly, is helped by Senators engaging in public hand-wringing about health care politics?
Meanwhile, another thought here is that in the United States of America we hold regular elections in which the popularity of different ideas is put to the test. Barack Obama ran for election on a platform of ambitious health care reform. His opponents mounted arguments against him. And he mounted counterarguments. He won the election. He won the election in Indiana. And his copartisans picked up seats in New Hampshire and Virginia and Colorado and North Carolina and all across the country. Yuval Levin at the Corner recently posted some data from conservative-friendly pollster Scott Rasmussen purporting to show that the GOP’s political problems aren’t severe as some people say. This polling data—the data that says Republicans are in good shape—shows that 53 percent of Americans prefer the Democrats’ approach to health care whereas just 35 percent prefer the GOP approach. That’s a gap of eighteen points, a much larger gap than Obama enjoyed overall against McCain.
Back in November, of Indianians who told exit pollsters they were most interested in health care 68 percent voted for Obama. I don’t see any reason to be terrified of Frank Luntz.
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