Two-thousand and ten was not a year for the Grand Old Party, and let nobody try to tell you otherwise. Yes, an historic gain in the House of Representatives is nice, and I sure am glad we flipped all those statehouses and even some state legislatures, and of course the infusion of the Tea Party spirit and Sarah Palin's strategic move to resign as Governor of Alaska (which happened before the Fourth of July in 2009 but was made with 2010 in mind) so she could help fire up the true base for the midterms was all just so wonderful. But the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which is going to end up becoming basically the opposite of it's own title, was passed on March 23, 2010, and that means that this year goes to the Dems.
It really is pretty simple, when you break it down. Sure, the move cost Obama quite a bit of political capital. Horror stories of socialized medicine elsewhere in the world, some true, some exaggerated, suddenly got real attention, even in forgotten corners of the mainstream media. People began to wonder just how intrusive this law would allow the government to become in private healthcare choices. Seniors, worried about Medicare cuts and cycles of drug or therapy rationing, began to form their own Tea Party groups and PACs. Working class Americans began to worry about the taxes that would soon follow. And the world began worrying about what a new step in entitlements would do for American borrowing and spending, given that 59% of our FY2010 budget already goes to other entitlements like SCHIP, WIC, unemployment, etc.
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| 25 years old = still a child in Obama's world . . . |
The move cost the Democrats in the House and Senate too. Opposition to the bill was bipartisan in the House, and the GOP stood fast in the Senate, but without enough votes to hold a filibuster, the Senate passed the measure with high drama on Christmas Eve in 2009. After three months of political wrangling that saw Scott Brown elected to Ted Kennedy's vacant Senate seat, two major conferences at the end of February 2010 to reconcile the bill with the House, and Rep. Bart Stupak's coalition forming to amend the bill to falsely appease pro-lifers, the bill passed the House and was signed into law two days later. Stupak wisely retired at the end of his term this year, and many other Senators and Congressmen were shown the door by voters in this latest electoral avalanche. Blue Dog Democrats, some of whom voted against the bill on conscience (and some for pure political reasons - your vote isn't needed, you're in a red district, etc), held on decently in the House, and the GOP gained 6 seats in the Senate. And all of this is good.
But the damage is done. The bill is passed. And repeal, if it's even possible when the time comes, will likely never be complete. The halfhearted dismantlement of Obamacare will be a disappointment for most Tea Partiers and fiscally conservative Republicans if it ever happens. Now that the bill exists, it will follow the golden path of entitlement programs: grow, suck, grow some more, someone makes a halfhearted attempt to fix, grow, suck, and grow some more. And lets not forget the virtual nationalizing of the college loan industry, the financial reforms pressed on by Bawney Fwank (who, BTW, kept his seat in the House despite high hopes he could be dethroned), and the new US nuclear posture, all of which Obama managed to squeak through while our economy has stagnated and unemployment is at record highs. Hell, even most of the seats that the Republicans won in the House this last round were seats that had been pretty solidly red for a while before 2006 and/or 2008. And while I'm sure our new majority in the House will be an important factor in the two years between election cycles, the fact remains that the Democrats are going to be calling most of the shots from now until then, and all the GOP has done is turn up it's volume a little. Depending on the outcome of 2012, conservatism might continue to rally. But 2012 could also yield a death knell, the ancient Mayan Prophecies come to life against the Right wing of American politics. Unless the GOP can continue to leverage it's grassroots enthusiasm for the next 24 months, we're going back to the 1970's - and that won't be a good thing.
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| At least it got a cool logo. |
While it's nice to see this election as a polar shift back to the Right in America, the fact is we've always been a center-right nation at heart. But the calamity of the 2006 and 2008 elections has left it's mark. Despite all the hard work done by the Right since then to rebuild, restructure, and regain a competitive footing in the grassroots of our free soil, it is too soon to rejoice.
And potentially too late.
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