A few days ago, I ran into this quote from Barack Obama: "Well, the big difference here and in '94 was you’ve got me. We’re going to see how much difference that makes now."
Good luck with that, Barry.
The reason that I say that is I feel I'm watching Clinton Redux here. During Bill's first term, it became painfully apparent to him that health care reform was not going to happen, but he let Hillary move on it. Part of this was because he couldn't tell her no, and because he couldn't tell her the truth of how bad the economic situation truly was. Of course, we all know that health care reform was derailed by a comfortable marriage of insurance industry assholes, the AMA and their Republican lackeys. (Not to mention the backstabbing by cowardly Democrats who wound up losing their seats during the midterm elections.)
So here we are note quite 20 years later and somehow, Barack Obama thinks His Mere Presence is enough to change things. But the signs aren't good because he let the Republicans run amok during the summer while he went on vacation so that by the fall, all we knew about health care reform was "death panels." And the defanging of any meaningful reform resulted in backroom deals and panic over losing the vaunted Democratic supermajority. Now, I have no idea if health care reform is completely dead, kinda dead or merely on life support.
But if Barack Obama is to be believed, His Mere Presence is enough to change things.
According to his State of the Union speech (replete with yet another "You lie!" moment), jobs are now the top priority. And this is why I say it reminds of of Clinton: it's the economy, stupid. If this is true, then health care reform will fade away to make room for the more pressing concern of getting the economy back on track, which to this non-economist, looks like it will take the better part of his term. And if that's the case and Dems lose enough seats in the elections this year, well then, you haven't changed anything by dint of Your Presence, Barack: you're merely repeating what's already been done.
So far, I'm not feeling very confident.
