Anticipating Obama’s Message
September 9th, 2009 at 1:14 pm by Jim Shella under Jim Shella's Political Blog
Things to think about in preparation for the President’s address on health care reform this evening:
-Remember when Bill Clinton made a speech (on health care reform) to a joint session of Congress? How did that work out?
-Republicans including Mike Pence are clamoring to speak out in advance of the address. Where are the Democrats?
-Barack Obama plans to visit cities around the country on a swing following the speech according to unconfirmed reports. Indiana supporters of the President plan watch parties. Can a return to 2008 campaign strategies save his proposal?
-If health care reform dies, does that hurt the Wishard referendum in November?
Tags: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Mike Pence, Wishard
To answer your first question: it worked out pretty well, actually. The speech was well received and his (and HCare’s reform’s) numbers shot up. The main problem, from the perspective of speechifying, was the year-plus gap between the speech and the end of the process (which of course turned out to be the fizzling to nothing of the bill). The better question, seems to me, would be: what will be the difference in impact of the timing of the two speeches? I don’t pretend to know the answer, ultimately, but history suggests it’s a lot better and smarter to throw presidential weight behind the whole thing later in the process than to expend that influence early (particularly on a single bill that comes explicitly from the WH, and can be chewed over and torn at for a year or so, rather than something worked out through congressional leadership, who therefore have some stake in its passage too).
Which makes your third question a little strange…what proposal of “his” are you referring to? There are, what, five different bills between the two houses, each of which comes from the relevant committees, none of which came from Obama? And how do we know the whole effort needs to be “saved”? Again, maybe it does…but the fact that all the attention-getting tantrums seem, regardless, to have left the whole thing basically where it was before August, legislatively speaking–and now with the extra development of Max Baucus releasing an outline and acknowledging that GOPs aren’t willing to be part of the process–well, the assumption that it needs to be “saved” may turn out to be a little glib. There still seems to be forward movement, not something foundering and flailing in place, hoping for a lifeguard.
My guess: passage of a bill that doesn’t include public option, but puts in new regulations and safeguards people are looking for, gives Dems something to run on next year. Or is completely forgotten in wake of many new developments over the next 12 months. But a bill regardless, one that can be built on in the future, and probably not the doom for Obama you’re looking for. (Still a little sore over that winning-Indiana thing, eh?)
btw, remember when the demise of health care reform was also assumed to be the end of Clintion? How’d that work out?
Was it CBS that said in his first 231 days in office B.O. gave 263 speeches?