Here once again reform supporters are outnumbered. AP Photo Bill Smith II
Even I, a clear advocate for the health care reform bill, must concede that at this point in the health care ballgame that the score favors opponents. Quite simply, health care supporters have been outmaneuvered, out-hustled, and outnumbered at nearly every political meeting. The ballgame is by no means over but unless the course of events changes dramatically I am afraid "real" reform will be dead come September.
What has been the cause of the losing battle for reform supporters thus far? I have a couple of theories which I would like to spell out.
First, Democrats seemed to have rested on the laurels after the election of President Obama and the Democrat-dominated Congress. The attitude seems to be "well we got our guys and gals in there now we can sit back and watch them fix everything." Clearly many Democrats have forgotten that democracy is not played from the sidelines. The election of Obama and other Democrats is of little significance if they can not get an Democratic proposals passed due to lack of public support. Republicans hated seeing Democrats take the 2008 election but such a loss will be must less painful for them if Democrats get no major legislation through in the next three years.
Secondly, the Republicans have proven to be more motivated in opposing reform than Democrats have in supporting reform. Even the "bad" polls for reform supporters have the American public fairly evenly split on the health care reform bill. Yet in town hall after town hall reform opponents outnumber supporters by at least a two-to-one margin. Opponents have been motivated by unfounded fears that the federal government will kill grandma. Supporters meanwhile seem less motivated to save grandma from the perils of the current system.
Third, and maybe most importantly, the reform bill opponents have dominated the message. All you need to do is tune in to any town hall and see Democrats spend most of their time defending against attacks to see proof. Instead of going on the offense against the current, horrible health care system Democrats are fending off accusation after accusation regarding any one of the 1,018 pages in the health care reform bill. Explaining away these attacks is complicated, takes time, and in the end opponents are still often left unconvinced because they do not trust the messenger. As many commentators have noted, when President Obama has to begin his own messages with "I am not going to kill grandma" this is a bad sign for reform supporters.
Democrats have attempted to respond to the onslaught from opponents on health care reform. Unfortunately most of these defenses appear weak. When Democrats complain about the numbers of protesters and the tactics used it smacks of a losing football team complaining about the other team running up the score. Other response tactics have backfired. The President's website to report false information on reform turned into a big brother program to collect names and IP addresses when twisted by the Republican spin machine.
In the end if reform fails Democrats may have no one to blame but themselves. A more effective response to reform opponents at town halls would be to outnumber them by large margins. Instead of complaining about town halls Democrats should show up at Republican gatherings in large numbers to show their support for reform. Some of this is happening now but it largely is not being covered by the media. Finally, the Obama administration must take control of the message once more much like they did after "lipstick on a pig" debacle in the 2008 campaign.
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