Never Stops, Never Stops

One million more states are holding primary elections today. Each one is wackier than the last. I’m not going to summarize them all, because I don’t care to think too much about places like South Carolina (even though it’s got the juiciest story).

Here, however, are the four marquee races to watch:

• Nevada Senate: Harry Reid, in the thankless role of Senate Majority Leader (think Tom Daschle), has been polling terribly at home all year, and everyone seems to agree that he’ll go down in November. But the emergence of a true Tea Party candidate, Sharron Angle, as poll leader on the GOP side has Democrats hopeful — Reid polls best against her. In a fun twist, Sue Lowden, the early GOP favorite and fundraising leader, lost her significant lead after she made some bizarre comments about solving health care costs by bartering with chickens. If Angle wins, Reid may survive.
• California Gubernatorial: Two strong female candidates in California have run, so far, two terrible campaigns. Yet they will live on to fight in November! Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO and Mitt Romney advisor, suffers from her old boss’s inability to take a firm position on any issue, but she’ll still probably get the GOP nod for Governor. Despite spending a fortune of her own money, Whitman trails Democratic former Governor Jerry Brown in the general election polls. Why anyone would want to be Governor of California at this point defies logic, but it should be a feisty (and expensive) campaign.
• California Senate: On the Senate side, the conventional wisdom holds that, in this anti-incumbent climate, Barbara Boxer is finally vulnerable. Maybe, but if the laughably incompetent Carly Fiorina wins the Republican nomination, as she should, I wouldn’t count on it. Fiorina has already released the most memorable ad of this campaign season, and continues to show her thin grasp of the issues by calling climate change “the weather.” I wouldn’t expect much from a fired Hewlett Packard CEO and economic advisor to the McCain campaign (how’d that work out for you?), but Fiorina’s bumbling campaign continues to surprise and delight. She’s within striking distance of Boxer, but if the primary campaign is any indication of how she’ll manage her messaging in the general, I wouldn’t bother dreaming of “Carlyfornia.”
• Arkansas Senate: Senator Blanche Lincoln’s political future hangs in the balance of today’s primary runoff, and Lt. Governor Bill Halter has all the momentum. Lincoln had Bill Clinton campaigning for her at the finish line, but it doesn’t matter: the GOP nominee, Rep. John Boozman, looks to trounce either Halter or Lincoln in the fall.

Stay tuned, sports fans.

Creative Obstruction

The political fallout from Scott Brown’s insurgent win has me thinking about the nature of our democracy. The way the republic is set up, if a large enough group of legislators—say, hypothetically, the Senate Republican caucus—simply chooses not to negotiate in good faith with the other side, offering only ideological proposals that have no basis in reality—say, hypothetically, deficit reduction and no cuts to Medicare—they can completely obstruct the agenda of even a huge majority like that the Democrats currently have (and will continue to have, don’t let’s forget, even in the wake of the Brown-out).

There is a certain brash creativity to this.

The Republicans stated, quite loudly, as soon as President Obama announced his intention to pursue health care reform in early 2009, that they would kill it. Straight up said it. A moderate few pretended to negotiate, but according to Harry Reid “it was a waste of time dealing with [Republican Senator Olympia Snowe] because she had no intention of ever working anything out.” The GOP can claim to have offered alternative legislation, but look at Jim DeMint’s proposals and try to tell me with a straight face that they would solve any problems. You can’t.

The Republicans’ capacity to obstruct has much to do with Senate rules and procedures. Use of the filibuster has jumped to historical highs in the past few years. There are many people, myself included, who believe that America might be better off if the Senate were simply abolished. If wishes were horses…

The broader point is that American democracy is imperfect, and always will be. A small minority can, with audacity and consistency, stop the government in its tracks. That old dinosaur The Village Voice captured it best today with their headline: “Scott Brown Wins Mass. Race, Giving GOP 41-59 Majority in the Senate.”

All eyes now turn to Obama. His reaction will determine how the Democrats will govern with only a 19-seat majority in the Senate. I leave you, for a dash of hope, with Jonathan Chait:

Here is what I think will happen. The shock and panic will play itself out over a few days. Then the Democrats will assess the situation and realize that letting health care die represents their worst possible option. And then they will make a deal to pass the Senate bill through the House. I am not positive this will happen, but it’s my bet, because elected officials at the national level, dim though they can be, are usually shrewd enough to recognize their political self-interest.

In the meantime, the display of hysteria is actually disgusting.

Sixty

Reid got there, and it’s a staggering achievement.

Politically speaking, I think Jonathan Chait has the most interesting take on what happened. Over the summer, during the heyday of the tea parties, it looked like health care reform was doomed, or at least eviscerated. Obama’s insistence on a bipartisan bill gave Republicans free rein to negotiate in bad faith. And boy did they.

Would you look at how that turned out! As Chait writes, “The Republicans eschewed a halfway compromise and put all their chips on an all or nothing campaign to defeat health care and Obama’s presidency. It was an audacious gamble. They lost.” A gamble for which we should be forever grateful.

Of course it’s not a perfect bill. Did you expect it to be? If so, there’s a bridge I’d like to sell you. (It goes To Nowhere.) But the package we got is certainly better than nothing; it’s better than what we could have gotten if the GOP hadn’t been so brazen; and it lays the groundwork for incremental improvement. Here’s what’s in it now. Marc Ambinder—one of the smartest observers in Washington—even thinks that what the President will sign, after conference, will be more progressive than the Senate bill:

The bill that Obama signs will be “better” from the standpoint of liberal activists than the bill that the Senate is going to pass. It will contain more subsidies…probably some version of a trigger for some sort of insurance competitive mechanism…a reinstatement of mandatory cost controls for hospitals…and even tighter restrictions on insurers.

It is, after all, the most wonderful time of the year. Know hope.