Editorial: Why Aren’t We Winning On Healthcare Reform?

Dave at WAYLA ponders why Democrats have been losing the healthcare debate. Please note that these views do not necessarily represent the opinions of others at WAYLA. Possible rebuttals to this post to come.

As it was mentioned last week, healthcare has long been a winning issue for Democrats. Americans are rightfully dissatisfied with their healthcare system and they’ve long (and still) trusted Democrats to come up with solutions.

A recent Gallup poll indicates that as the economy is improving - or at least falling among the issues Americans are concerned about - the healthcare issue is rapidly rising among the public’s concerns.


I think it’s prudent to say most Americans aren’t falling for the claims coming from conservative pundits that the United States has the best healthcare system in the world.

Except over the past month support for reform seems to have declined. Confusion over whether or not to support a reform bill has risen 17% since July - most of that coming from people that once supported reform - and now the firm pro-reformers and anti-reformers are neck-and-neck in the polls.

How is that possible?

Political consultant Peter Daou wrote for the Huffington Post yesterday, and has some interesting insight as to why the conservative view is building momentum:

“Setting aside strategic errors by the Democrats (and there have been several in this fight), just look at how reform opponents have outgunned the White House using town halls, cable news, newspaper editorials, Freepers, Drudge, talk radio and chain emails. If I close my eyes, I'm transported back to my days on the Kerry campaign and the summer of Swift Boats, Purple Heart Band-Aids and rightwing attack machine antics. It's as though a half decade of technological advances disappeared in the blink of an eye. Forget Facebook and Twitter, it's all about Fox and MSNBC and CNN replaying images of angry protesters at town hall meetings railing against 'government takeovers.' It's about Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh spreading fear and fury. It's about anonymous emails zipping across the country, distorting the facts and sowing confusion…

Paradoxically, the attempts by Democrats to counter all this by sending emails to Obama's list and creating campaign-style fact-checking websites seem almost quaint by comparison. When a woman at a town hall spoke about ‘awakening a sleeping giant,’ she may as well have been alluding to the old media tools and techniques that have been dismissed by pundits and tech evangelists as anachronistic in the Internet age. Simply put, despite volumes of cyber-ink about the left's online prowess, and despite Democrats controlling the White House and Congress, the right can apparently dominate the national conversation using the same outlets they relied on five and ten years ago.”

But we beat all that in 2008! Barack Obama managed to overcome email rumors, conservative pundit fear-mongering, and all the other right-wing old-media tactics! What’s so different now?

The difference is there isn’t an electoral campaign, and because of that, all the progressive activism that put Obama over the top has come to a stand-still.

Sure, Obama may be using all sorts of New Media techniques just like he did during the campaign, but it wasn’t New Media that won him that election - it was the energized volunteers who knocked on doors and made phone calls. These are the most effective ways to communicate with voters, and - as WAYLA has said time and time again - Obama’s campaign was able to contact a whopping 37% more voters than the McCain campaign.

So why aren’t Democrats going door-to-door to talk to their neighbors about the benefits of healthcare reform? After all, wouldn’t that be the best way to solidify public approval of such legislative action?

This is where I can’t help but wish that Howard Dean was still Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Not only did he give the party’s activists energy, but he developed some of the most clever strategy imaginable.

While the GOP stayed vested in their 50%-plus-one (no exceptions) mindset, Dean pushed a 50-state strategy for his own party. In the short term it probably wasted resources on races where Democrats couldn’t win, but there was a long term goal behind it. By setting up races in every state, the Democratic Party could lay down the foundation for future success with campaign infrastructure and a network of donors and volunteers for future races. It was often criticized, but there’s evidence that it worked.

Yet the Dean brainchild that comes to mind most right now - however - is something that was called the Neighborhood Leadership Program. Neighborhood Leaders would go out into their community and identify Democrats who might want to get involved with the party. One of the benefits was it would give the Democrats a heads up in getting to know their neighbors and becoming friendly with them. It wasn’t just a campaign-year thing - it was a long-term program.

At the time I first learned about it, I must admit, it seemed fairly unnecessary. Why put volunteers through a year-round task of talking to neighbors about political issues? Now, I’m beginning to see the purpose.

When I looked at the DNC’s website today I couldn’t find anything about the Neighborhood Leadership Program. Then I visited my state party’s website, and could only find this page explaining that activists could call their members of Congress and go to town hall meetings. Just a year ago, I would have been able to sign up on either site as a Neighborhood Leader in a matter of seconds.

Evidently, that’s all changed. And now it appears that astroturf organizations are ready to not just kill healthcare reform, but climate change legislation as well. So far they’ve been getting away with it because there’s been an absence of progressive organizing.

So what happened?

Could it somehow be influenced by that old rivalry (driven by differences of opinion on strategy) between Dean and now-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel? Could it be that the current Chairman - Governor Tim Kaine (D-VA) - is too busy governing his state to successfully fill the shoes of his predecessor?

Could it be a lack of initiative on the part of Organizing for America? Many Democratic activists say that OFA - the remnants of the Obama campaign - isn’t actually organizing.

I keep hearing that Democrats are just too “burned-out” to make the sort of effort that conservatives are making right now. To some extent it makes sense: now that we’re in control, we’re not fighting the power like we used to - the Republicans are. But the more I think about it, the more I can’t help but believe that’s just a bad excuse.

We pointed out earlier this month that the GOP is proportionally more motivated than the Democratic Party. But guess what? There are more Democrats out there! In fact, there are about just as many energized Democrats in this country as there are energized Republicans at the moment.


In the end I just think it comes down to leadership. Ever since Dean left, there seems to be a real vacuum in the Democratic Party.

Barack Obama told us in his victory speech that the election itself was not the change everybody was seeking, just the opportunity for change. Yes, he won, but he told supporters to continue the work they were doing as volunteers for the campaign - to continue to organize for change.

I believe that progressives are ready to do so. They’ve wanted healthcare reform for so long, and they don’t want astroturfers to kill it. But it’s going to take a little organization on top before we can organize on the bottom. Otherwise the prospects for healthcare reform look pretty dismal.


UPDATE: OFA is having an online "strategy meeting" with President Obama Thursday, according to an email sent out today by former campaign manager David Plouffe. You can RSVP, submit a question, and maybe just find out what the strategy is for winning the healthcare debate.

In Politics, Money Makes All the Difference

It has been remarkable following gay rights issues in Washington over the past 48 hours. The White House has announced that President Obama will be signing an executive order sometime today to extend federal employee benefits to same-sex couples. Yet it all started because of a gay-oriented fundraiser that several gay activists and bloggers became upset about.

It wasn’t long before several prominent gay rights advocates - including a leader from the Human Rights Campaign - pulled out of an Organizing for America fundraiser featuring Vice President Biden because the administration had thus far made no move to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) or the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.


Much of it stems from a Justice Department brief filed in California recently that not only defended DOMA, but drew parallels between the gay marriage case before the court and several possible precedent cases involving incestuous marriages.

From a Politico update yesterday:

"I will not attend a fundraiser for the National Democratic Party in Washington next week when the current administration is responsible for these kind of actions," [activist David] Mixner wrote of a motion to dismiss a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act that drew a parallel between same-sex marriage to incestuous marriage. "How will they ever take us seriously if we keep forking out money while they harm us? For now on, my money is going to battles within the community such as the fight in Maine or the March on Washington! I am so tired of being told by Democratic operatives to 'suck it up' because so many other profound issues are at stake."

It was a good idea - not only is the LGBT community a critical base of support for Democrats, but they are a generally wealthy one.

Suddenly the Obama folks were caught off guard. DNC Treasurer Andrew Tobias, scrambling to come up with a quick response, could only say “If this debacle of a brief represented the president's views, I'd boycott too,” and then sent an email that not only said “So...counterintuitive as it may feel at this moment...come to DC for our dinner June 25, and hear what the Vice President of the United States has to say as he joins Governor Kaine and Governor Dean and Barney Frank and others in celebrating Gay Pride” but also reassured the recipients that there would be protesters outside the event!

Finally - out of nowhere - the White House made it clear last night that Obama would introduce basic benefits of domestic partnerships to LGBT federal employees.

Of course, the benefits cannot include some health and pension benefits due to DOMA restrictions - which the White House says Obama wants Congress to overturn - and so the decision received mixed reactions.

Now, this is not to say that the decision to create domestic partnerships for federal employees was based solely on dollars and cents. It is certainly the President’s wish to extend gay rights, and we can expect a move on issues such as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, and repealing DOMA in the future.

But the fact that the economy, health care, and other issues have been priorities (that could be derailed if the administration was to upset the GOP with gay rights issues) has stalled the President from making this move so far.

It looks like this serious uproar from gay rights advocates (and more importantly, donors) just got the ball rolling.

Back in Minnesota…

It has been quite a while since we gave you a detailed update of the Coleman-Franken “race” in Minnesota, so we thought we would do so today.


A 3-judge panel ruled unanimously last week that Democrat Al Franken won the election for U.S. Senate back in November by 312 votes. Norm Coleman argued that Minnesota’s variety of procedures to count absentee ballots violated the Equal Protection clause of the U.S. Constitution and disenfranchised over 4,000 voters. Politico reports on how the panel responded.

While acknowledging that errors were bound to happen in any election, the court said that the Minnesota Senate election was free from fraud and that errors did not reach a constitutional violation of equal protection.

"There is no evidence of a systematic problem of disenfranchisement in the state’s election system, including in its absentee-balloting procedures," the judges wrote. "To the contrary, the general election resulted in a ‘fair expression’ of the voters of Minnesota."

Attorney Ben Ginsberg - a legend of the Bush v. Gore battle, and is representing Coleman - said the judges spent "so much time in patting their back on the Minnesota system" that they "missed the issue" that thousands of voters are still being disenfranchised. "We’ll be at peace if all Minnesotans are enfranchised."

Staying on message, NRSC Chairman Sen. John Cornyn told supporters in a fundraising email that the Court’s decision was "fundamentally misguided" and that Democrats were being hypocritical. "It’s frankly shocking that many of the same Democrats who so loudly decried voter disenfranchisement during the Florida recount in 2000 have so quickly run away from that principle when it no longer fits their political agenda" said Cornyn’s email.

But the Democrats are hitting back with a radio ad. The ad tells Coleman to "stop putting his political ambition ahead of what’s right for Minnesota."

"Enough is enough," says the announcer, noting that Franken won the original election, the recount and a legal challenge. "America is in an economic crisis - and Minnesota faces unique challenges of its own. Minnesota deserves two Senators and voters deserve to have their verdict stand without delay."

Coming one day after a three-judge panel in Minnesota ruled that Franken "received the highest number of votes legally cast," the ad also represents a coordinated Democratic push to end the race.

The DNC-funded ad is playing on news radio stations in the Twin Cities.

Coleman, however, has already appealed the recent decision to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which has agreed to review the case. However, there is some question as to whether a quorum of Justices can be reached.

Two of the seven Minnesota Justices have already recused themselves because they served on the State Canvassing Board that has ruled on a great number of issues in this case. Now the legal community is wondering whether there will be three more recusals.

Justices Lori Gildea and Christopher Dietzen donated to Coleman campaigns, while Helen Meyer gave money to Sen. Paul Wellstone, whom Coleman challenged in 2002. These are certainly grounds for recusal.


But in order for a quorum of the Court to be reached - and to therefore decide the case - at least four of the seven Justices must be present. It is pretty unusual for a case to be undecided by the Court due to recusals.

If it does happen, the issue would be dead and Al Franken would finally take his seat in the U.S. Senate. If the Justices do not recuse themselves…well, we don’t know where we’ll be a month from now.