“He’s shoving this healthcare bill down our throats!” Thus spoke one disenchanted Massachusetts voter during the special Senate election on Tuesday. That voter was upset at the dictatorial procedures being used in the House and Senate to pass the president’s health care bill. And that voter’s message was heard.
The Scott Brown upset victory in Massachusetts Tuesday is exciting for those who believe in limited government. One of the interesting questions now is, “What happens to the health care bill–and the rest of the progressive legislation on the table?” In 1994, President Bill Clinton lost 51 House seats (and control of Congress) in large part because he backed an earlier unpopular health care bill. But Bill Clinton abandoned his political agenda after that election and eventually signed the Republicans’ welfare reform bill, and some cuts in the capital gains tax as well. With this shift in tactics, Clinton won re-election in 1996.
President Franklin Roosevelt won four presidential elections and he did so by taking careful measure of American voters. When he had the votes, FDR passed many bills–such as the NRA, the AAA, the TVA, and the WPA–which sharply increased the role of government in American lives. But after FDR won re-election in 1936, his pride welled up and he tried to pack the U. S. Supreme Court with a bill that would allow him to appoint up to six new Justices. That bill became very unpopular, but FDR had invested political capital in it and he kept pushing it anyway. Finally, when Congress refused to pass it, he tried to influence the Senate election for majority leader. That failed too, and FDR ultimately lost 81 House seats in 1938.
FDR learned his lesson. Do not buck popular trends. He never did again. When war sentiment emerged after Germany sunk a couple American ships in 1941, FDR refused to push for a declaration of war–the American people were not behind it. When Democrats supported the first health care reform bill during World War II, FDR refused to back it because the electorate did not want it.
If President Obama follows the path of Presidents Roosevelt and Clinton, he will abandon health care and postpone his progressive agenda. If he does that, as FDR and Clinton showed, a president can come back from political embarrassment and win another term. If President Obama and the Democrat majority persist in, as the Massachusetts voter said, “shoving this healthcare bill down our throats,” he will probably lose the battle to get a majority of votes in the House and will almost certainly lose large numbers of Democrat seats in 2010 and his presidency in 2012.
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