Obama Should Stop Chasing Republican Votes

Next week President Obama plans to give a speech to a joint session of Congress on health care reform. 538.com's Nate Silver expects that this may be the biggest moment of Obama's presidency, barring some unforeseen crisis in the future. He may be right. Obama's political future may very well depend on how well he is able to gather votes to pass a health care bill.

The public option remains popular among the public. However, there has been some suggestions by David Axelrod and others that Obama's speech is likely to outline a plan for reform that does not necessarily include a public option. This would be a mistake, particularly if the final bill includes an individual mandate without a public option. This would be a terrible result, forcing people into private plans or co-ops that are unlikely to be large enough to have significant bargaining power with healthcare providers.

Obama's mistake from the beginning has been to seek a "bipartisan" solution to this legislative puzzle. Time and time again the Republicans have made it clear that they will not vote for any bill, no matter how many concessions it contains. We should be talking about compromise in the sense of getting together the progressive and the Blue Dog wings of the Democratic party. Progressives also have the option of running strong primary challengers against Blue Dogs in the next election, and that fact should not be left out of the negotiation process. Max Baucus has a 'gang of six' that includes three Democrats and three Republicans. The 'gang of six' should have included three liberals and three Blue Dogs, since these are the only two parties that matter right now.

The strength of the Blue Dog caucus because of triangulation. I blame Bill Clinton.

The best thing Obama could say at his speech next week is, "on the issue of health care reform, several Republicans and a few Democrats have not been negotiating in good faith. That's okay. We can get this thing done without them. And the voters can let them know what they think about that at the next election."

But it doesn't seem like Obama's ready to play hardball.