Which lawmakers can, and can't, play the health-care game

By Eugene Robinson
Friday, December 18, 2009;A33

As the attempt to pass meaningful health-care reform stumbles oafishlytoward home plate, having missed a base or two along the way, it's hardnot to repeat Casey Stengel's famous lament about the hapless 1962Mets: "You look up and down the bench and you have to say to yourself,'Can't anybody here play this game?' "

The answer is that some can and some can't.

Nancy Pelosi can play. Faced with adamantine opposition fromRepublicans, take-no-prisoners exhortations from progressives andfoot-dragging equivocation from nervous Blue Dogs, the speaker stillmanaged to get a bill out of the House that included almost everythingPresident Obama wanted, including a public health insurance option.

It always amuses me to hear people call Pelosi a "San Franciscoliberal," because while the description is objectively true, itsuggests a certain delicacy of sensibility. In fact, Pelosi was bornand raised in the bare-knuckles world of big-city machine politics --her father was Tommy D'Alesandro, a legendary Baltimore mayor. Sheknows how to count votes and how to keep them counted.

Pelosi also knows how and when to exercise her many prerogatives. Wesaw an illustration on Wednesday, when she brought to the floor severalhot-button measures: a hike in the debt ceiling, a defense bill ladenwith baggage such as an extension of unemployment benefits, and a $154billion new stimulus package funded with unused financial-bailoutmoney. Normally, each of these would have sparked a huge fight -- butnot on the last day before recess, when everyone was rushing to get outof town. That's the way stuff gets done.

The Republican leaders in the House and the Senate can play, too. Atthis point, 11 months since Obama took office, it's striking howsuccessful Republicans have been in presenting a united front againstvirtually everything the president and the Democratic congressionalmajorities are trying to do.

I have my doubts about this strategy in the long run. I'm convincedthat while the Republicans may be doing the Democrats considerablepolitical harm, they're not doing themselves much political good.Specifically on health-care reform, solid Republican opposition hassucceeded in raising doubt about the Democrats' proposals. But votersaren't convinced that the system is just fine the way it is, and that'swhat the Republicans are perceived to be arguing.

In the short term, however, Republican unity has forced SenateDemocrats into the position of not being able to get anything donewithout hanging on to every single one of their 60 votes. This meansthat any member of the Democratic caucus can hold health-carelegislation hostage by making extortionate demands.

Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Ben Nelson(D-Neb.) and, especially, Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent,know how to play. Dorgan and Landrieu have been extracting concessionsfor the folks back home. Nelson has the Senate in knots over abortion.And Lieberman has managed to make himself, for now, the key player inthe whole debate.

Lieberman didn't want a public option to be included in the Senatebill, and it's out. He decided he didn't like the idea of letting those55 and older buy their way into the Medicare program -- even though hehas specifically endorsed the idea in the past -- and so that's out,too. At this point, he almost seems to be making demands just becausehe can.

Who can't play this game? You have to point the finger at SenateMajority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Granted, he's in a nearlyimpossible position, needing a three-fifths majority to get anythingdone, but he has made a bad situation worse. He announced that theSenate bill would include a public option, but didn't have the votes.He got everyone excited about the Medicare buy-in idea for a few days,until it got shot down. And his remarks comparing the health-caredebate to the epic battle over slavery were a grotesque embarrassment.

What about President Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel? Ithink of another Stengel aphorism: "The secret of managing is to keepthe guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided." The WhiteHouse hasn't managed to drive a deep enough wedge between the SenateRepublicans, who aren't going to vote for reform under anycircumstances, and the Democratic caucus. The waverers and theopportunists have been allowed to take control.