Health Care and the Midnight Vote
By Jeffrey Page
As the Democratic leadership in the House goes about patting itself on the back over the historic passage of national health care legislation, it should be noted that the vote was no mandate. In fact, for a party that won 55 percent of all votes for House members in last year’s election, it was pathetic.
This was the bill put forth by House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. A few 2008 election statistics are necessary here. Pelosi was reelected with 72 percent of the vote last year. In the mid-Hudson Valley, John Hall was sent back to the House with 59 percent and Maurice Hinchey won reelection with 66 percent of the vote.
The health measure, meanwhile, squeaked by over the weekend with a scant 50.7 percent of votes cast in the House. Thirty-nine Democrats voted against it; what do they know that Pelosi does not?
This vote could make matters difficult for the party and for President Obama when voters go to the polls one year from now because, if nothing else, it suggests that the Democrats – wildly triumphant last year – are not invincible.
Obama and Pelosi handled things badly. During the summer just past, Democrats made light of the crowds attending tea parties and town hall meetings against health care reform. It makes no difference that some of the protesters – the civil ones as well as the yahoos shaking their fists and calling their congressional representatives liars to their faces – might have been ill-informed. Who will soon forget the guy who told his congressman that he didn’t want the federal government intruding on his Medicare coverage?
Obnoxious or polite, right or wrong, the important thing is that the protesters were out there when they could have been enjoying a summer evening. They turned out again last week when about 10,000 people showed up for an anti-health bill rally on the Capitol steps. This with just two days notice.
Obama seemed to be on a nice long vacation over the summer. As far as medical care legislation was concerned, he let his friends in the House take the heat. His decision to stay out of the fray was as badly conceived as John Kerry’s allowing six precious weeks to pass during the summer of 2004 before responding to the Swift Boaters and their lies about his military service in Vietnam.
In another example of bizarre leadership, Pelosi, in deciding to hold the House vote late Saturday night, was guilty of Old-Think. It used to be that if a politician scheduled an unpopular announcement for anytime between 5 p.m. Friday and 5 p.m. Sunday, no one would know about it. But in the age of the Internet and 24-hour cable news, everybody knows everything all the time, or at least has a headline in mind. For politicians, there’s no hiding.
The next time Pelosi put her foot in her mouth was soon after health care passed – by a not especially uplifting vote of 220 to 215 – when she was asked about the nature of bi-partisanship.
“That vote was bipartisan,” she said, referring to the fact that 219 Democrats were joined by one Republican, Anh Cao, a first-term backbencher from New Orleans who is likely in for a spirited primary next year.
Actually it’s the Republicans who can claim the bipartisanship banner. They got 39 Democrats to switch sides and join them in voting No.
Next year, the 258 Democratic members of the House will have to answer for Pelosi’s midnight vote and delusional definition of bipartisanship.
Jeffrey can be reached at jeffrey@zestoforange.com.
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