Democrats around the country are taking justifiable pride in the historic passage of health reform last night. The long journey to universal health care in the US took another major step forward, despite fanatical obstructionism from the minority party.
The path to passage involved many twists and turns, and credit is due to any number of people who had a hand in putting the reform effort over the top. And since in Washington, "success has a thousand fathers", we can expect to see several players taking victory laps whose efforts were disappointing, marginal, or even harmful.
But today I want to celebrate the person who I believe to be health reform's true "father" - even though she's a mother.
I am flat out in awe of Nancy Pelosi.
Exhibit A of the case for Nancy's claim to be the pivotal force in the battle for health reform is this article from yesterday's New York Times. The lead paragraphs
Speaker Nancy Pelosi was at her wits’ end, and she let President Obama know it.
Scott Brown, the upstart Republican, had just won his Senate race in Massachusetts, a victory that seemed to doom Mr. Obama’s dream of overhauling the nation’s health care system. The White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, once Ms. Pelosi’s right hand man on Capitol Hill, was pushing Mr. Obama to scale back his ambitions and pursue a pared-down bill.
Mr. Obama seemed open to the idea, though it was clearly not his first choice. Ms. Pelosi scoffed.
“Kiddie care,” she called the scaled-down plan, derisively, in private.
Please read the entire article - it is a fascinating look behind the scenes of the administration's groping toward eventual success, despite early and repeated setbacks. The picture that emerges is of a well-intended President whose commitment to post-partisanship handed one apparent victory after another to a united and fiercely partisan Republican party. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, perhaps permanently scarred by the whippings delivered to the Clinton administration by an insurgent right wing, is always pressing for cutting losses and calling any legislation a victory.
Only Nancy, among the key platers, was unremitting and unyielding, pressing the President so hard at one point that he pushed back in irritation, saying "I am not a stupid man."
In the end, he was smart enough to see that allying with Nancy to put health reform on the books was the best hope to sustain an active, relevant Presidency. And the relationship between the two, once testy, became close, as they worked as a team to realize a Democratic policy goal that had been deferred for decades.
Exhibit B for Nancy's claim to the title as "Father of Health Reform" is in this article from today's Politico: Nancy Pelosi Bets the House on Health Care
In 2001, running hard to be House Democratic whip, Nancy Pelosi had a blunt message for her caucus: If she won, she was going to lead from the front — and if colleagues didn’t want that style of leadership, they shouldn’t vote for her.
Sunday night’s historic win for health care reform showed just how real Pelosi’s promise was.
No one threw more political chips on the table than the California Democrat during the yearlong struggle to pass the bill — or gambled more going into November. And over the next seven months, Pelosi must now defend not just her party but her speakership, knowing that if Democrats lose power, she will almost certainly face a leadership challenge if not outright pressure to resign.
Politico pays homage to Nancy's hard-charging, meticulously organized leadership style:
In truth, Pelosi has never quite stopped being the Democratic whip — the post that put her on the path to the speakership.
After taking the speaker’s gavel in 2007, she famously told a reporter that she was surprised at how “serene” she felt in her new post. Aides — accustomed to her tempestuous style — laughed at the time but agree now there is a cool confidence that settles in on the speaker once she has set a goal.
“She’s confident even when the winning margin is only a few votes,” said one. “I’ll be wondering how she thinks she can get away with it, but she’ll have her lists, adding up the names, this way and that. She’s rigorously pragmatic.”
And last night we saw the Pelosi leadership style in action. What surprised me the most was how calm Nancy and the rest of the House leadership were in the hours leading up to the final vote. Often, on critical close votes, you see the leadership scurrying between one Representative and another, shoring up the wavering, confirming the count. Not last night. All the House leaders were calm, confident, almost jovial, as if to say, "No sweat, guys - look and see how it's done in the big leagues."
Awe inspiring.
And the votes did come: 219-212 without a single Republican "aye".
The results: a step forward for the nation, a Democratic Party resurgent, and a Republican Party, which by playing for all the marbles in an attempt to make health care Obama's "Waterloo", ended up creating a Waterloo for themselves. These last are not my words, but those of former Bush speechwriter David Frum, in his FrumForum blog. This post has gotten so much attention that I can't currently link to it, as his servers are being crushed under the traffic.
For all of the above, thanks are in order for everyone who helped make it possible. But for me, my biggest, most heartfelt thanks go to the biggest "Mother" in Washington:
Thank you, Speaker Pelosi. You give me hope.
Update: As an extra treat, here's the link to David Frum's "Waterloo" post. His servers finally caught up to the demand. Enjoy!