After Ted Kennedy passed away, Scott Brown, a longtime state legislator in Massachusetts with a reputation for not being a cookie cutter Republican, decided to run in the Republican primary for the open Senate seat, easily defeating also ran Jack E. Robinson on Dec. 8, 2009. At first, little attention was paid to a onetime property assessor who'd established a modest reputation as a Veteran's advocate and had little national profile, aside from a nude appearance in a magazine when he was 22. After all, he was a longshot against the Democrats' Martha Coakley, the high profile Massachusetts Attorney General.
Given the little attention being paid to the state political race, and considering the speed with which it happened, the Senate's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, passed on Dec. 24, 2009 after a forced cloture vote, was seen by the White House as a good response to Congress' efforts, and a starting point for a debate that would be resolved in Conference between the House and Senate. Finance Committee Chairman Baucus indicated that pre-conference processes would begin right away. This orderly process was not to be.
Polls began to show Brown defeating Coakley, as teabaggers began to organize behind Brown and fund his campaign. Alarmed, the White House ran to Coakley's aid. On January 17, 2010, Obama appeared on behalf of Coakley, saying at a Boston rally, "You have the unique and special responsibility to fill the Senate seat that you sent Ted Kennedy to fill for nearly forty seven years." It wasn't enough, and Brown won.
Republicans crowed immediately. "There’s a reason the nation was focused on this race: The voters in Massachusetts, like Americans everywhere, have made it abundantly clear where they stand on health care. They don’t want this bill and want Washington to listen to them," Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell boasted. Sarah Palin added (via Facebook), "You know that there’s something wrong with this legislation when opposition to it inspired a Republican victory in a state that currently has no Republicans in Congress and last sent a Republican to the Senate nearly 40 years ago."
Inside the White House, a somewhat dispirited west wing began to wonder how to respond to this chastening. They'd heard the arguments that Brown was elected over the bill, or that Brown was elected because Health Care had bumped the all important economy off the front page. On January 21, the White House announced measures to reign in the size of banks and bank bonuses. Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that the President was considering lowering the bar on Health Care, and trying to put through some much more modest initiatives.
"I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on," Mr. Obama said in an interview on ABC News, notably leaving near-universal insurance coverage off his list of core goals.
By the time of the State of the Union address, the President had rallied a little, smarting still from the political wound, but less hesitant on the need for Health Care reform, saying, "I didn't choose to tackle this issue to get some legislative victory under my belt; and by now, it should be fairly obvious that I didn't take on health care because it was good politics." And the President opened a door.
As temperatures cool, I want everyone to take another look at the plan we've proposed. There's a reason why many doctors, nurses and health care experts who know our system best consider this approach a vast improvement over the status quo. But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know.
Democrats remained dispirited about Health Care reform. "It's very possible that health care is just a stalemate and you can't solve it this year," said Mark Pryor, Democratic Senator from Arkansas. Mary Landrieu said it was on "life support."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would have none of it. Deriding the idea of reduced health care reform as "kiddie care", she noted the big fight all along had been between incrementalists and those wanting comprehensive reform. She pushed the White House for an aggressive response, signaling to her own troops at the same time that it was game on.
During a mid-February conference call with top House Democrats, Pelosi made it clear she would accept nothing short of a big-bang health care push — dismissing the White House chief of staff as an "incrementalist."
Pelosi even coined a term to describe Emanuel’s scaled-down approach: "Kiddie Care," according to a person privy to the call.
Pelosi’s remark was more than just a diss. It sent a clear signal to House leadership that Pelosi wouldn’t compromise — and it coincided with Obama’s own decision to renew his push for an all-encompassing bill after weeks of confusion and discussion.
Pelosi and the White House got to work trying to round up votes for the only strategy that could work: passing the Senate bill word for word. It was an impossible climb, as district-representing Congress Representatives are much more politically polarized than the Senate - unless Congress dampened expectations, and at the same time were given something to take home by a Senate they increasingly mistrusted. And Senate Democratic Leadership were opposed to the idea of fixing their bill through reconciliation. The President began to set the stage for Reconciliation in the Senate. He invited Democrats and Republicans to a Health Care senate summit. Having recently been stung by a well-publicized confrontation with the President at the House Republicans' annual conference, the Republicans were nervous about attending such a summit.
And sure enough, they were walking into a trap. At the summit, both Pelosi and Obama hammered home the same themes. "We cannot have another yearlong debate about this," said the President. "This will take courage to do but we will get it done," said Pelosi. "I don't know frankly whether we can close that gap," concluded President Obama. And Reid had already said prior to the summit that Republicans needed to "stop crying over reconciliation as if it’s never been done before...Contract with America was done with reconciliation. Tax cuts, done with reconciliation. Medicare, done with reconciliation."
The Conservatives and their think tanks saw it coming. "It’s a prelude to going for broke," said Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation.
Pelosi began to start counting, and her former House ally Rahm Emanuel began phoning, and if Eric Massa is right, lobbying in the Congressional showers for Senate bill votes. Stupak was definitely a no on the Senate Bill, but Reconciliation did not offer the possibility of reinserting the Michigan congressman's language. So Pelosi and several Obama allies began playing hardball. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York circulated an anti-Stupak petition to her volunteers and donors, and a Michigan County Commissioner issued a primary challenge. A normally solid Democratic suddenly vulnerable to the charge of being a Blue Dog, Stupak compromised with the Speaker and the President on an Executive Order, issued before the bill passed.
Another big win was Dennis Kucinich. An idealistic hold out on the left, Kucinich could not stomach the idea of a bill without a public option. The President pointed out to Kucinich that there was in fact public option language in the bill and that, at any rate, this was only a beginning. Bernie Sanders was put on the job of lobbying Kucinich, which he did both privately and publicly. On Monday, March 15, Kucinich took a ride with the President on Air Force one to his home state of Ohio, where the President planned to campaign in honor of Natoma Canfield, a cancer-suffering woman who had written the President pleading for him to resolve her exorbitant health care bills. Somehow or other, they put it together. Soon Kucinich was not only on board, but whipping the progressive caucus on behalf of Pelosi. "We have to be very careful that the potential of President Obama's presidency not be destroyed by this debate," Kucinich said.
On the left and on the right they had the numbers. A palpable sense of impending history rolled just momentum along to cross the 216 vote threshold. A few blue dogs resisted the threat of witheld Presidential support in 2010 (a decision many will come to regret) but it was not enough to stop American history from being made.