Today in Washington, D.C. - Feb 26, 2010 - GOP Had Good Day At Summit, But Democrats Still Stuck

After the events at Blair House, the Senate last night voted 78-18 to pass H.R. 1299, the vehicle for Majority Leader Harry Reid’s tourism promotion bill, which creates an Office of Travel Promotion in the Commerce Department.  Prior to that vote, the Senate rejected by a vote of 38-58 a motion from Sen. Jim DeMint to allow DeMint to offer an amendment to the bill prohibiting the Interior Department from designating certain national monuments.

For those who made it through all seven-plus hours of yesterday’s health care summit at Blair House, two things are quite clear: Republicans had a good day and seriously made their case against the Democrats’ health care reform bills and Democrats find themselves in the same place today that they were last week in the problems they face trying to move a bill.

Many pundits and journalists had high praise for Republicans, after a number spent the week assuming they would be outclassed or painted as simply partisan obstructionists. NBC’s Chuck Todd said, “Republicans were seen 10 times more prepared for this summit than the Democrats were.” CNN’s David Gergen opined, “Intellectually, the Republicans had the best day they’ve had in years,” and added, “The folks in the White House just must be kicking themselves right now.” CNN’s Gloria Borger said, “The Republicans have been very effective today. They really did come to play. They were very smart.” A.B. Stoddard of The Hill said, “I think we need to start out by acknowledging Republicans brought their ‘A Team.’” And even Democrat political consultant Dan Gerstein admitted to Politico, “The Republican tone was just right: a respectful, substantive disagreement, very disciplined and consistent in their message.”

Conservative commentators seemed to agree. Rush Limbaugh, after initially saying he thought Republicans shouldn’t attend the summit, no longer considered it a mistake and said, “I want to commend the Republicans for, at least up to now, sticking to the high arguments of this . . . .” Sean Hannity tweeted, “I think Republicans did a great job today. They were respectful yet confrontational and addressed the real issues.” On Fox News, Charles Krauthammer said, “The Republicans really helped themselves.” The American Spectator’s Philip Klein wrote, “I think that Republicans have been, generally speaking, handling this very well.” And at The Corner, Yuval Levin wrote, “The Republicans seem genuinely well-prepared, seem to have thought through the question of who should speak about what rather carefully, and several of them have done quite a good job making their case against the Democrats’ approach. If we were to judge by debating points, Republicans certainly won the morning handily.”

Meanwhile, in the process of analyzing yesterday’s summit, journalists said the day did not get Democrats any closer to passing their unpopular health care reform bill. Marc Ambinder and Politico’s Glenn Thrush both deemed the summit “a tie” that went to Republicans. According to Thrush, “In this case, the tie goes to Republicans, according to operatives on both sides of the aisle — because the stakes were so much higher for Democrats trying to build their case for ramming reform through using a 51-vote reconciliation tactic.” The New York Times noted, “For the president, Thursday’s session was a kind of Hail Mary pass, a last-ditch effort to keep his top legislative priority from slipping out of his grasp.”

“But the truth is,” another Politico story observes, “the Democrats are no more certain of getting health care done after the summit than they were before. The seven-hour session did little to change the underlying dynamics of the debate.” A New York Times analysis elaborated that moving forward “would require mustering the support of centrist Democrats in the House and the Senate who have expressed apprehensions about both the health care bill and the reconciliation process … It was unclear if the event had won over any of those votes, especially among House Democrats who opposed the bill in November, and whose support could be critical to reviving it.”

And importantly, Politico points out, “Gallup polls going in showed the public didn’t favor Obama’s bill and also opposed the reconciliation process – and it’s hard to picture how the summit changed those results.”

Republicans had a clear message going in: the public does not support the Democrats’ bills, so it’s time to scrap them and start over. Democrats don’t seem to have made any headway convincing people otherwise. Will the key Democrat swing votes pay attention to what happened yesterday and vote against these bills if their leaders try to move them anyway?

---

Tags: government healthcare, US Congress, US House, US Senate, Washington D.C. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!