Health Care Reform and the Sad Narrative of a Deflated Democratic Party

The Wall Street Journal’s Adamy and Meckler just posted the sad narrative of a deflated Democratic Party the day after the Mass. special election in which voters chose Republican Scott Brown over Democrat Martha Coakley to fill the late Ted Kennedy’s long held seat in the Senate.


Brown’s win in Mass. should not have come as such a shock to the Democrats. During the 2008 Democratic primary, Bay state voters demonstrated they were not owned by the Kennedy clan when they chose Hillary Clinton despite the fact that Sen. Kennedy, Sen. Kerry, and Gov. Deval Patrick had all three endorsed Obama. That should have told party leaders something in their headlong rush to undermine Hillary and speed Obama to the nomination.


Even so, I’m finding small satisfaction in the latest denouement of the Democrats as they continue to plummet back to earth from their euphoric rise with their charming, but inexperienced leader.


About health care reform, Adamy and Meckler write:


One day after losing their filibuster-proof Senate majority in a Massachusetts special election, exhausted Senate Democrats looked downtrodden as they filed into their weekly lunch in a second-floor room at the Capitol. "People are hysterical right now," said one Senate aide.


Party members clashed openly over what to do next. Sen. Max Baucus, a top Senate Democrat, appeared to throw cold water on a bill that would focus only on stiffer insurance regulations. Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, scotched another idea, a complicated parliamentary maneuver to usher a bill quickly to the president's desk.


In an interview with ABC News, President Obama said he would be open to scaling back the legislation in order to salvage it. "I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements in the package that people agree on," Mr. Obama said. White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said later the president would prefer Congress to pass the comprehensive package, and has not given up on that option.


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