I predicted weeks ago that the health care legislation would not pass out of conference committee. I still might end up being wrong. But I am sticking to my original story.
I believe a win by Scott Brown in MA will be the undoing of President Obama’s health care legislation. I know there is talk of various ways in which the House and Senate could come together and send something to the President. But a Brown win makes that politically untenable.
My critics will argue that my forecast turned out to be correct (if it does) because of the Scott Brown win, which nobody could have predicted. But that argument confuses cause and effect. If Brown wins, it will be (at least in large part) because of the voters’ disapproval of Obamacare. My argument all along has been that public disapproval would be the undoing of the health care overhaul. And it just happens that the MA senate race is the venue in which that disapproval will manifest itself.
History tells us that large scale legislative initiatives don’t get passed in this country when the people overwhelmingly disapprove. I still believe this case will be no different.
I knew there was a reason why I kept that poll open. The Dingy One screwed up the politics because he had everything the Left wanted except abortion in the version that actually made it out of the House. However, in a desperate bid to appease the NAGs, he decided to push an abortion-heavy version through the Senate (hijacking a bill in the process) instead of working with what came out of the House.
Now, we’re at the point of where either Stupak and company swallow abortion and nothing else, or the House goes “reconciliation” and brings back HR3200. In fact, I still maintain that if they have the votes to swallow the Senate abortion whole, they will go the “reconciliation” route because there is 51 votes for that in the Senate.
Steve, your analysis is too, uh, analytical. A Brown win will bury the current healthcare bill not due to same congressional calculus but due to something more primordial (and yes, I’m referring to Nancy Pelosi’s age). Even now, I suspect Pelosi is glazing lustily at Brown’s Cosmo centerfold, methodically mapping out a way to trap Brown in her office for some one-on-one “reconciliation.” If Brown is the man I suspect he is, he will take one for the team. The next day, Pelosi will inexplicably drop the healthcare bill with a whimsical look on her face (no one will be tell the difference).
An unlikely scenerio, you say. No more than a Republican win in the Mass special election.