(Warning—this contains numerous horse-racing terminology and silly metaphors. Continue at your own risk)
I have been on record at this site (and others) saying that the public option is all but dead. That has been my stance for several weeks, particularly after reading in detail at Firedoglake that the president made some really shady backroom deals with the healthcare industry early-on. However, as this thing plays out, I find myself being forced to 2nd-guess that assertion.
I now have a severe case of cognitive dissonance.
If you want to know what this has to do with picking horses, please follow along...
When making a decision in life, one must consider all the variables in play and then prioritize them in order of importance. This truism is no more apparent than in the art of picking horses.
There are probably at least 50 variables to consider before putting your hard-earned money on horse #6. Who is the jockey? Does the horse like this type of track? Does he run well in the slop? Is he a 1st-time lasix? What are his recent workout times? What’s his breeding? Has he ever run this far before? Who has he beat? In other words, what’s his class?
There are a myriad of other variables too numerous to mention—but the class of the horse is often the most important. Is he an allowance horse or does he run in graded stakes races? How much money has he won? How does he perform against similarly-talented competitors?
But the most important thing to consider is that you don’t know what variable will be most important on this particular day. You have a list of 20 or 30 variables to mull over and then you prioritize them—but you NEVER REALLY KNOW what you’ve missed...what variable will carry the day today...the track...jockey...breeding...class...
The answer is you don’t know.
I’ve spent hundreds of hours reading racing forms and musing over different variables, and I probably know more than 90% of the betting public on horse-racing. And you know what?
I still suck at it.
Because you never know what variable will be most important on any given day. And it is with that hard-won knowledge and consideration of variables that I plowed into the healthcare debate and considered the likelihood (or lack thereof) of a public option.
Let’s apply the same horse-racing methodology for the public option and see what we come up with.
Who is the class of this field? Good Lord, that one’s easy. As a friend of mine used to say, there’s only one horse in the field. We’ve got Secretariat and his name is Barack Obama. It’s his race to win or lose. If he wants a public option he’s probably going to get it.
But...does he really?
The reason I ask is because he apparently bargained it away last spring. Why would he do an asinine thing like that, you may ask. That is, of course, uncertain, but from my countless hours of reading, I believe he calculated that he had rather pick a fight with his base than the Healthcare industry. Because, think about it..by making that deal just look what he got:
- He avoided an incredibly nasty, well-funded fight with some powerful industries (yes, even nastier than the one we are currently watching)
- He got a promise for a $150 billion ad campaign by Big Phama in favor of reform.
- He got a promise that these same industries will help bluedogs monetarily in the upcoming elections and not help republicans.
That’s a lot.
(I apologize for the lack of links—I’m new to this technology—sort of the last man alive not to see E.T.—but you can find this info at Firedoglake)
Now, what have we established? We have the class of the field in this race, the horse to beat. Obama has never lost. You’d be a fool to bet against a man who has never lost a race and who has been saying he’s for a public option all summer long.
But in reading further, I’m not at all sure Obama likes the track. He seemingly bargained away the public option early on and he just doesn’t seem to have his heart in picking a fight with the bullies on this surface and seeing his way clear to the finish line.
People forget that Secretariat lost twice.
But here’s where I made my mistake. I looked at the variables and made up my mind too early. The prime variable to consider in my mind was to take the class of the field—and that was Obama. And once I was able to determine what Obama REALLY wanted by judging his actions—and not simply accepting at face value what he SAYS he wants—I simply could not bet against him.
After all, just look at his weak competition. The republicans are shot up with steroids and hormones and they only run well in the slop. The liberals are a very fast horse early on but they always fade in the stretch and can never be counted on in a long race...right?
Not so fast my friend.
This could be a classic instance where I saw a variable and completely misread it. The liberals always fade away in the stretch and can always be counted on to compromise their principles—and that is true 99% of time. But what about that almost never-seen, never-witnessed by Man, other 1%? After all, asking liberals to concede a public option would be like asking republicans to concede a tax cut for the wealthy, wouldn’t it? I mean, it’s against their DNA.
So you might say that in this particular race, the liberals are a 1st-time lasix horse—shot up with adrenaline and feeling their oats so-to-speak—perhaps primed to pull an upset. I don’t know if that will be good enough to overcome the class of the field in the end. But some people are certainly pricking up their ears and taking notice, including me.
See how I blew it? I successfully determined the class of the field and placed my bet early on, quite confidently I might add, and ending up completely missing this little 1st-time lasix horse that always fades in the stretch.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I suck at picking horses. Because you never know which variable is most important on any given day.
Or any given healthcare fight.
And so now I am hedging my bets a little. I’m still betting on Obama. But I might put the liberals in a parlay. On bottom, yes, but still on the ticket.