The Strategy For 2010

Despite what anyone says, the result from the Massachusetts special election is not a repudiation on health care reform, President Obama, or Liberalism. Instead this was a perfect storm of 10% unemployment, opposition enthusiasm that always occurs in off-year elections, and a really shitty candidate in Martha Coakley. Regardless, the Democratic Party got caught napping, and we could use a good kick in the ass to wake us up.

I was all set to write a lengthy post laying out a plan for how we can rejuvenate the base and restore the enthusiasm we had in 2008. Turns out, Matthew Yglesias, a much smarter man than I, already wrote it, and you should read the whole thing.

By threatening to kill [the health care reform bill], moderates have consistently been able to water it down. The results have sapped the enthusiasm of Obama’s base, while also tying the president to the much-less-popular institution of Congress. To avoid a disaster in the midterms, the White House needs to reverse this trend: it needs to pick a battle it can afford to lose. The ideal candidate is the financial regulatory reform package …

This is an issue where the administration can afford to draw lines in the sand and refuse to compromise….

Then the president can do what progressives would have liked to have seen him do on health care—tour the country denouncing opponents of his agenda as corporate stooges, desperately in hock to special interests….

The key thing, however, is that if they don’t get spooked, the White House can afford to take the legislative defeat and play for a political win. Thus, Obama’s been hobbled by the need to take on issues like the stimulus and health care where everyone knows he can’t walk away from the table. Those are the cards he was dealt, but it’s made him look weak. A good loss, by contrast, could be an opportunity to show some much-needed toughness.

I’d also like to add that by not compromising and “playing to lose”, the White House can make “Republican obstructionism” the narrative of 2010. In doing so, Obama will educate the public on the Republican party’s overuse of the filibuster and how that is what’s preventing us from achieving the “change” we all want. Additionally, by refusing to compromise, proposed legislation will have a shorter lifetime on the floor and be subject to less misinformation and hyperbolic demagoguery from the far right.