Chait's analysis in the entire piece is bad. For example, he writes:
A few years ago, Tom Edsall wrote a great Diarist for TNR arguing, based on his years of playing poker in Washington, that Republicans are better players than Democrats:
Republicans are much less risk-averse than Democrats, and taking risks is crucial to poker. Howard Baker noted that Ronald Reagan's 1981 tax cut was a "riverboat gamble." The GOP has consistently demonstrated a willingness to risk high deficits, especially to cut taxes that fall on their biggest donors. [. . .] Democrats, conversely, are the party of risk-aversion- [. . .] They are less able to tolerate the tension and uncertainty of a game in which a week's salary--or more--can be won or lost in a single hand.
Clearly, some element of this has borne out in the health care fight. Republicans have made the fight as high-stakes as possible. Rather than offer some compromise bill, which at least one moderate Democrat would surely have jumped on, they formed a solid wall of opposition, and made reform an all-or-nothing proposition. They've played the issue with maximal aggressiveness, forcing the Democrats to cash in on a landmark bill or collapse in utter defeat.
This is completely wrongheaded analysis. First off, the political bargaining on the health issue was never a poker situation. It was always a bargaining situation.
Second, Republicans were never at the bargaining table. Republicans have never bargained on the health care reform issue because there was absolutely no upside for them politically in it. Faking bargaining is not the same thing as bargaining.
Was Olympia Snowe bargaining? Perhaps. But she was the only one. No other Republicans has been bargaining.
The negotiation was all among Dems. From the beginning. And now till the end. It was always ridiculous for Dems to concern themselves with the GOP as bargaining partners. While there was certainly a level of kabuki that needed playing for political purposes, no one can seriously think there was ever any serious bargaining going on.
The other flaw in Chait's analysis is related to the first - it lumps in all Dems together as if they have the same views and same political interests. they clearly do not. Thus when Chait writes:
I just wonder if Democrats are actually foolhardy enough to heed these warnings. After all, as I keep pointing out, the two parties are engaged in zero-sum electoral competition. Why on Earth would you do what your opponent is urging you to do? It's possible that Edsall is right -- Democrats are so risk-averse they can be bullied into folding their hand on a huge pot just by sheer bluster. But they can't be that pathetic, can they?
The interest of Dems as a group has long been scattered to the wind on the health care reform issue. Obviously, it is in President Obama's political interest to pass a bill. But what helps Obama does not necessarily help Dems in their individual 2010 races. It is not a zero sum game for Dems, in that it might help some to see a bill passed and it might hurt others to see a bill passed.
That is why the bargaining process amongst Democrats was critical and why it was so damaging that so much time was wasted pretending to bargain with Republicans. The actual hard bargaining, the actual meaningful bargaining, never took place in favorable circumstances. Concessions were handed to folks who never were going to vote for a health bill. In legislation, you can't give the same concession twice.
Chait's piece is emblematic of the generalized failure of Democrats to understand big picture, in the open political bargaining. Can they do backroom deals? I suppose so. But big policy negotiations? Clearly not.Speaking for me only
