RSS Feed MenuConservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.
It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:
(1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.
(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.
So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:
A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.
At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.
Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.
This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.
Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.
Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.
No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?
We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.
There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?
I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.
So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.
Follow David Frum on Twitter: @davidfrum
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David Frum on Morning Joe… « DaTechguy's Blog // Apr 2, 2010 at 8:12 am
[...] that MSNBC is pushing his article of MARCH 21st. Gee I wonder why MSNBC wants to promote an article from 12 days ago? Could it be that the polls [...]
FoundingPrinciples // Apr 2, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Mr. Frum, you are quick to point the finger at ardent conservatives, but you fail to lay the blame where it truly lies — the leftist radicals occupying Washington. There has never been a more Soviet-style Administration and Congress than what we are currently enduring. To dance with these devils is to be soiled by their morally bankrupt ideals. With the very founding principles of our nation having been assaulted by these tyrants and despots, Americans have thus responded in uprisings and protests of outrage — freedom-loving, Constitution-respecting Americans. Limbaugh and Beck are squarely in that group. While you may want to question their motives, for those of us who have followed these men for decades (in the case of Limbaugh), I don’t think you will find any two men more effective at exposing the real battle here. The battle is not economic, but rather moral. There is a battle that has been waging since the 60’s for the soul of our nation, and with your article, you are not helping. If you want to help (which I believe you do), then you owe Limbaugh and your readers an apology for failing to properly assess the battle that we all are committed to waging.
It is not a battle where victory is defined by compromise with devils, but rather victory can ONLY be defined by THEIR DEFEAT.
You should not be uncomfortable with this characterization, because the heinousness of their ideas DEMANDS it. We are sick and tired of the cut-and-run style of politics that gives these people one inch. We are not arguing over whether to hang blue drapes or purple drapes in the Oval Office. The existence of our nation is at stake!! Remember, while General Washington gave up entire states in one stinging defeat after the other, the tide of the Revolutionary War was changed on that cold night in December, 1776 when he refused to wave a white flag, and crossed the Deleware to win decisively in Trenton. Don’t let ANY battle losses deter you from winning the war — NO COMPROMISE; ONLY DEFEAT. We would do well to remember the same in November.
jwpulliam // Apr 2, 2010 at 3:19 pm
It seems as if people have forgotten that democracy in the best of times can only exist when intelligent people with different viewpoints can come to a compromise on what is best for the country. If one party thinks that its point of view is the only way things can be, then not a lot gets done and governing becomes very difficult. I consider myself an independent and vote for the person I think will do the best job and has the ability to think. Fortunately, living in Indiana and having Richard Lugar and Evan Bayh, as senators, we have two relatively sensible people who I sincerely think want the best for the country. The thing that upsets me is that we need both parties to produce effective legislation. The Republicans used to be sensible down to the earth people when I was growing up. Now it seems as if they hate anything that doesn’t conform to an extremely narrow outlook based upon fear more than fact. I would have hoped they would have put some of their ideas into the the law just passed, because they had some very good suggestions in my opinion. Instead, they were like a little kid that runs home with his football home when he didn’t get his own way. Compromise is the only way democracy can survive and without it we are doomed to repeat the style of European history our founding fathers were trying so hard to avoid.
The Fate of the Republican Party « Locust blog // Apr 3, 2010 at 7:55 pm
[...] take another complaint that Republicans never attempted to reach a deal. We decided that there would be “No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for [...]
The Tea Party ‘drops by’ | Political Madness // Apr 3, 2010 at 10:38 pm
[...] done all of this, what can you expect people to do? You don’t deliver a petition to Hitler. You don’t picket outside the home of someone who wants to kill your grandma. We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and [...]
États-Unis - L’affaire David Frum | Le blogue de Jean-François Lisée // Apr 5, 2010 at 1:37 pm
[...] texte qui a fait déborder le volcan anti-Frum: Waterloo. Écrit le jour de l’adoption de la réforme de la santé, contre le voeu de 100 % des élus [...]
Pajamas Media » Let’s Do It Right This Time // Apr 6, 2010 at 3:50 am
[...] our ranks. They reflexively elevate the importance of any vain masochist among us who would rather undermine his own people than fight those who long to control [...]
Obamacare is Here to Stay | FrumForum // Apr 6, 2010 at 8:33 am
[...] dust has now begun to settle after the firestorm that was the Waterloo column, an argument that unleashed a tumultuous, passionate, and sometimes nasty debate over political [...]
Could Health Care Lead to Defeat for Republicans | We The People Politics // Apr 6, 2010 at 1:33 pm
[...] much — How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother?, says Frum sarcastically — they successfully gained the name of the Party of [...]
Links for March 18th through April 6th – eclecticism // Apr 6, 2010 at 2:01 pm
[...] Waterloo: "No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the 'doughnut hole' and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents' insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there — would President Obama sign such a repeal?" [...]
A Reply to David Frum’s “Waterloo” « 'Cause I Said So… // Apr 7, 2010 at 7:29 am
[...] in the passage of “health care” to be the GOP’s absolute defeat. In his blog post, Waterloo (http://www.frumforum.com/waterloo), Frum blames passage of the final form of the legislation on Conservatives in the Republican [...]
Let Me Count the Ways // Apr 7, 2010 at 10:02 am
[...] have been wrong that health care reform would be Obama’s Waterloo and instead is really their [...]
Andrew Graham » Blog Archive » Healthcare Reform Likely To Suppress Bipartisanship In Washington. // Apr 7, 2010 at 10:24 am
[...] opinion-haver David Frum is not happy about the passage of healthcare reform. But his opinion isn’t entirely hollow, and the focus [...]
Frum’s Folly | John M. O'Hara // Apr 9, 2010 at 9:05 am
[...] GOP stubbornness. The failure to stop ObamaCare is hardly the GOP's Waterloo as Frum asserts. It is, however, a major setback for the American people who overwhelmingly oppose this [...]
David Frum's Tragedy « The Modern Independent // Apr 9, 2010 at 7:21 pm
[...] care reform strategy, it came on the heels of a column he wrote on his website last Sunday. In the column, he wrote that with the passage of health care reform, Republicans and conservatives not only lost [...]
When does 2+2=4 become debatable? When it’s politics, stupid! | The Velvet StraitJacket // Apr 12, 2010 at 2:32 pm
[...] next morning and fired, but he says it wasn’t because of what he said. Frum also posted a blog saying… We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to [...]
Attitudes on Health Care Reform Already Shifting « The Modern Independent // Apr 13, 2010 at 4:04 pm
[...] article in Newsweek. Former Bush speech writer, David Frum, has also made some incriminating comments about Republican tactics and their resulting legislative [...]
Waterloo Redux - Scott H. Payne - The Lobbiest - True/Slant // Apr 15, 2010 at 3:51 pm
[...] on March 21, David Frum wrote his now infamous “Waterloo” post on the Republican folly of maintaining its identity as the party of no vis-a-vis health care [...]
Waterloo Redux - Scott H. Payne - The Lobbiest - True/Slant // Apr 15, 2010 at 4:19 pm
[...] on March 21, David Frum wrote his now infamous “Waterloo” post on the folly of Republicans maintaining their identity as the party of no vis-a-vis health care [...]
Trending North News » Is health care reform unconstitutional? // Apr 15, 2010 at 4:44 pm
[...] and address the nation’s desperate need for genuine reform. To quote conservative David Frum, bemoaning the loss of sanity among the Republican Party [...]
Daily Data Dump | Gene Expression | Discover Magazine // Apr 16, 2010 at 2:21 am
[...] Republicans clash over financial reform. I think this is a case where David Frum’s half-a-loaf is probably wisest; the public is suspicious of Republicans when it comes to financial [...]
YourTechWorld » Daily Data Dump | Gene Expression // Apr 16, 2010 at 7:02 pm
[...] Republicans clash over financial reform. I think this is a case where David Frum’s half-a-loaf is probably wisest; the public is suspicious of Republicans when it comes to financial regulation. [...]
Hero Sandwich » Mondays are for Makin’ Trouble! // Apr 19, 2010 at 7:14 am
[...] Republican David Frum — George W. Bush’s former speechwriter, no less — on how Republican extremists and pundits are killing the GOP. [...]
Exploiting Misinformation // Apr 23, 2010 at 10:06 am
[...] the House and the Senate, and its National Committee Chairman. When no Republican leaders, save one ex-speech writer turned blogger, is willing to publicly denounce that “fringe,” it is no longer a fringe. It is the [...]
Charlie Crist, the GOP and the curious refusal to compromise | Cynthia Tucker // Apr 28, 2010 at 2:56 pm
[...] without it. Conservative David Frum, who has not given up his hold on rational thought, chastised the Senate Republicans for their refusal to compromise on the health care legislation: A huge part of the blame for [...]