Dr. Lawrence Hunter
September 3, 2009

"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.

Yesterday’s lengthy email discussion brought to the surface a fundamental fissure that divides the camp of ObamaCare opponents.  On one side are those (primarily policy wonks and professionals) who assume SOME healthcare bill WILL pass this year and who hanker to get as much “good stuff” in the bill as possible.  Another group on this same side of the strategic divide are resentful of Republicans who failed them in the past and see this as an opportunity to force Republicans to commit themselves to “good policy” so that even if they fail to get it in a negotiated bill this time, they will be forced to go on the record so they cannot escape taking the “right position” on the next bill to come down the pike.

On the other side of the divide are those (primarily grass-roots activists and political activists) who believe it is possible to checkmate the Obama Administration and prevent ANY bill from passing this year.  This group believes the strategic objective should be to shelve the entire healthcare debate until after the midterm elections.  I find myself on the latter side of the divide even though I consider myself primarily a policy wonk. 

The outcome of the healthcare reform struggle will be determined by which view governs strategy and activities from here on out. 

This game is ours (ObamaCare opponents) to lose, and there is nothing President Obama or his congressional Democrats can do on their own to win it if we don’t make a mistake.  The point I tried to make to the group was that any deviation from a relentless strategy to KILL BILL is a mistake in my opinion.  To take a sport’s analogy, the fastest way to lose this game is to start thinking about the next game.  And, if we are thinking and talking policy (other than to criticize ObamaCare policies), we are thinking about the next game because there is no way in hell a sufficient amount of good policy can ever make its way into a bill this year in this Congress to make it acceptable.  Hence KILL BILL, end of story.

We are now entering the End Game, and no matter how brilliant our Opening Game and Middle Game were—and they were brilliant—we will throw it all away if we fail to make the transition in our play.  You can’t win at golf if you can’t putt; you can’t win at basketball if you can’t hit free throws; you can’t win at chess if you can’t play the end game; and you can’t win at politics if you can’t be ruthless in playing the political end game.  That is why Democrats repeatedly beat Republicans in the policy arena and why government continues to grow relentlessly regardless of which party controls the government  --  conservatives play policy when we should be playing politics while big-government advocates play politics from beginning to end.  

All politics and no policy makes a political party or movement corrupt and degenerate but all policy and no politics makes a political party or movement just plain stupid.  The little ditty about the Democrats being the evil party and the Republicans being the stupid party didn’t just arise for no reason.  

If we assume SOME bill will pass, we can pretty well bet that prophecy will become self-fulfilling and some bill WILL pass.

If we have confidence we can stop all comers, we stand a very good chance of succeeding.  But we will only stop all comers if we lay policy aside for now and do whatever is necessary to defeat the bill, any bill, which means all of our energy and resources must be concentrated on preventing a single Republican from defecting. 

The debate is entering the stage (the Obama counter-offensive stage) in which ANY continued discussion of policy (what we should do or what we would accept to “fix” healthcare) is counterproductive to defeating a bill, any bill.  Many of us in the struggle against ObamaCare are policy wonks and medical professionals with very strong views about what should be done and about how stupid the Republican Party was for not doing them when they were in power  --  which of course applies in many areas other than healthcare.  Can you spell tax policy?  There is a huge temptation to believe we have the Obama Administration on the run, that the President is desperate for a political win, and therefore will be amenable to crafting a bill acceptable to us that he can claim as his own.  (The treatment of this struggle by the popular press only encourages that belief: “One option, leading Democrats said Wednesday, is to tailor a bill to the demands of Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), a key moderate who has displayed the most willingness to continue negotiating with Democrats.”) Message to the troops:  This temptation is a snare and a delusion that will throw the game away. 

Politics has a flow and a rhythm to it—it moves in seasonal cycles.  As difficult as it may be for we policy wonks and medical professionals to accept, the season for substance and policy has ended for now and will not return until after the healthcare reform debate is put on the shelf, which means until after we defeat any and all comers during this Congress.  Nothing we can do today on policy will set the stage for tomorrow’s struggle, certainly not succeed in “trapping” Republicans into doing “what’s right” the next time around.  If we try to exploit Obama’s weakness now by attempting to craft a bill he will accept that we can live with, we not only will strengthen and empower him, we almost certainly will create a monster that will get out of control in very short order.

Continuing to focus on substance (other than to criticize the substance of the Obama/Dem bills) will divide and divert us, and it will allow Republicans such as Olympia Snowe to avoid facing what she has to do, namely whatever is necessary to defeat a bill or face political extinction.  Again, the popular press offersinsights: 

“. . .Snowe is scared to be the sole Republican supporting this bill, not to mention the Republican who ensures the passage of this bill. The reprisals within her caucus could be tremendous.  If Snowe drops off the bill, using the budget reconciliation process will probably be a necessity.”

 

As long as we continue talking about alternatives, we encourage Republicans like Snowe to continue negotiating whether that is our intent or not.  And, rather than fearing Reconciliation, we should relish forcing the supporters of ObamaCare into a corner from which they cannot escape because if they enter the Reconciliation box canyon, checkmate lies at the other end.

We must agree among ourselves that our strategy is to KILL BILL, any bill, every bill, a big bill, a little bill, kill them all.  If we can’t pledge that to each other, we don’t have the right stuff to win.