The president followed his instincts to call for a more civil debate and seek consensus as broadly as possible, writes DAN BALZ
AFTER A month of angry town hall meetings and dire predictions about the state of his top domestic priority, US president Barack Obama moved forcefully on Wednesday night to take the initiative on health care – and in the process rejuvenate his presidency and unite his fractious Democratic Party.
In a speech to a joint session of Congress, Obama did what many people long have urged him to do, which was to begin to put his own stamp on the legislation and to frame the debate on terms that will build public support. But the question was whether the path he outlined – what he described as a middle ground – will satisfy either the progressives in his own party or the few moderates in the Republican Party who may be interested in co-operating with him. If anything, the speech and the sharply partisan reception to it in the House chamber only served to highlight the work that remains before Obama can make good on his pledge to enact major reform by the end of the year.
There was a sense of urgency in the president’s voice – in apparent recognition of the problems he has encountered through months of congressional bickering, hostile and sometimes false claims hurled by opponents of reform and the degree to which he has gambled his own presidency on the outcome. Obama may have lost ground over the summer in the healthcare fight, but he effectively used the power of the presidency on Wednesday to try to reset the debate on more favourable terms as Congress begins a final push.
The president had two overriding objectives for his speech to a joint session of Congress. First was to reassure and ultimately rally a sceptical public to get behind the drive for comprehensive healthcare reform. On this, it was clear he had in mind two audiences: independents and senior citizens. He sought to reassure independents worried that his agenda threatens a fiscal disaster for the country by vowing not to sign a Bill that would boost the deficit.
For seniors, he looked directly into the cameras and vowed: “I will protect Medicare.”
Obama almost certainly will get a boost in the polls from this speech, as former president Bill Clinton did when he gave a similar speech to Congress in the autumn of 1993.
Obama’s key to success is to use the space created by this moment to drive Congress, particularly his Democratic allies, toward consensus and action. The longer the debate continues, the more the gains he receives from this moment will dissipate. That is why his second objective was to put his own stamp on the healthcare debate in a way that will move the legislative debate from its current stalemate to final passage.
For weeks, Obama has been pulled and tugged in the healthcare debate, urged by Republican opponents to abandon his plans for comprehensive reform and to significantly scale back his initiative, and exhorted by many Democrats to return fire and challenge those opponents as aggressively as they have challenged him.
Instead, he followed the instincts that have guided him throughout his political career, which was to call for a more civil debate and seek consensus as broadly as possible.
He tried to set himself as the midpoint in a debate between a single-payer system run by the government and the abandonment of the employer- based system that now exists.
For Republicans, he offered some possible concessions as a way to demonstrate his willingness still to work across partisan lines. He also invoked the late senator Edward Kennedy to remind some of Kennedy’s GOP allies of their co-operation with the liberal lion of the Senate, hoping to cajole a few more Republicans to join the effort to enact a Bill.
“I still believe we can replace acrimony with civility, and gridlock with progress,” he said.
But the reality is he faces near universal opposition from the GOP. If he succeeds in his quest for healthcare, it will be with at best token Republican support. That means binding up a Democratic Party divided between its liberal and moderate wings, most notably over the provision for a public insurance option.
On this issue, Obama reiterated his support for a public insurance option, but urged progressives not to make that provision the key to their support. In essence, he left unresolved for now the issue that has dominated the debate.
It is rare in a presidency so young that so much was on the line on Wednesday night. No single speech can solve the puzzle of how to build a consensus behind healthcare legislation and in that sense this was not the make-or-break moment described by some commentators.
But Obama has staked his presidency on this issue and his advisers knew it was long past time for him to assert himself in a more demonstrable way or risk seeing the entire enterprise slip away from them.
The healthcare battle is more than a test for Obama. It represents a challenge to his entire party, and the degree to which Democrats recognise that will determine the fate of healthcare legislation this year. Democrats have said throughout the summer that failure is not an option. Now Obama must persuade them to act in their collective self interest, rather than individual self-interest.
As the 2010 elections loom, the conflict between self preservation and party unity will grow more acute. Obama has only limited time to move the debate toward a conclusion. He used all his rhetorical powers on Wednesday night to try to jump start the debate over healthcare.
His test now will be to employ his powers of persuasion in the gritty negotiations that will take place in the coming weeks. His hope is to make good on his Wednesday night statement. “I am not the first president to take up this cause,” he said, “but I am determined to be the last.”