Robert Costa channels the latest thinking of Mitch McConnell:
Come 2010, health care will continue to dominate American politics, says McConnell. “This fight isn’t over. It’s going to be a multi-cycle campaign issue. Many Democrats will be defeated over this. The landscape is shifting. We have an excellent chance of having the cavalry arrive next year. The Democrats will be more skittish. A substantial number of them will want to change the subject as rapidly as possible. [Health care] is a huge political loser for them. We’ve watched the surveys change, created a national debate, and laid out our differences in opinion. Our side didn’t go in the tank and make this a bipartisan bill. We showed that our opposition has a pulse.”
I have some sympathy for this “bipartisanship is bad” point of view. Arguably the public deserve a stark choice between two clearly defined alternatives. And this is how most countries work. If Gordon Brown proposing something, we expect David Cameron to say it’s a terrible idea and here’s the Tories’ much better idea. Even if Brown’s proposal is actually close to what Cameron wants to do, Cameron doesn’t sign on and try to split the difference. The opposition is supposed to lay out an alternative agenda.
This system works pretty well. But it works in part because the opposition doesn’t actually get to block the government’s actions. The government goes along and governs and then the opposition gets its chance later.
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