Strategy Memos
Strategy Memo 9/3/09
"If you think you can, you can. If you think you can't, you're right."
-Mary Kay Ash
Founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics
My day yesterday was consumed by participating in an email discussion group about what our (ObamaCare opponents’) end-game strategy on healthcare should be. It was a fascinating, and somewhat disturbing discussion. Fascinating because this is the first major policy battle, as opposed to political campaigns, in which the interconnectivity provided by the Internet may determine the outcome of the political struggle. Disturbing because it reminds one how policy wonks (among whose ranks I count myself) and professionals frequently fail to grasp the essentials of political combat, especially the last stages of a particular struggle, the end game.
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Strategy Memo 7/27/09
ObamaCare has stalled but it is a long way from dead. In fact, we are at the most critical point in the struggle. Unless we drive a stake through ObamaCare’s heart right now, President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will be able to buy and intimidate enough votes to revive it.
There is an old saying in politics, “Never intervene while your opponent is destroying himself.” We should heed that advice.
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Strategy Memo 7/17/09
*Update* 7/17 In a Wall Street Journal op-ed today, Kimberley Strassel confirms that Chuck Grassley, Iowa Senator and Ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, may hold the key to delaying and ultimately defeating ObamaCare. As we pointed out in the original post below, Grassley seems almost desperate to cut a deal with Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus to make the Senate healthcare bill “bipartisan.”...
Strategy Memo 6/18/09
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll makes it crystal clear that in order to defeat government-run health care it will be necessary to educate the public that ObamaCare will blow another huge hole in the budget. The poll also makes it clear that the coalition fighting against government-run healthcare is failing to connect those dots. This must change fast or the struggle to prevent a government takeover of healthcare will be lost by the time the kids go back to school in the fall...
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Strategy Memo 6/15/09
Updated 6/16/09
President Obama spoke to the American Medical Association this morning and reiterated the same platitudes and promises he has been uttering since the presidential campaign. What he did not explain, however, is how he intends to square the circle of universal, top-quality healthcare for everyone without imposing healthcare rationing, without raising taxes on the middle class and without blowing another trillion-dollar hole in the deficit.
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