Political Armchair Quarterbacking...

I have always been worried that despite Obama campaigning on change, he would simply continue the policies of Bush. Why was Bush so hated by everyone? The problem with Bush is that he was fiscally liberal and socially conservative. If you want to know how to be hated by virtually everyone, what Bush did is the way to do it. Liberals hate him because of his social views. Conservatives hate him because he spends too much money. Independents really hate him because they tend to be the exact opposite of Bush. Most independents are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. The fact that John Kerry lost to him in 2004 shows how terrible a campaign he ran.

Obama's problem is that he's fiscally and socially liberal and hasn't worked with the opposition party, instead relying on party loyalty to force his agenda through. The conservatives despise him and the independents are abandoning him as well. That is most of the country.

He paid for it this week with the loss of the super majority in the Senate with the loss in Massachusetts. Looking at the election results last Tuesday, you would think that Massachusetts is a red state. This is the most Democratic, liberal, state in the country. It is suppose to be the state where any candidate with a pulse and a D next to him/her should win. This will make the rest of his agenda far more difficult since he will now be forced to engage the Republicans that he may have alienated in the past year.

Obama must move towards the center or he will plummet faster than Bush did. Let's look at the health care bill, which has become a political disaster for Obama and the Democrats:

http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf

It is nearly 2,000 pages long! Does anyone besides the people who wrote it really understand what is in this bill? As busy as the politicians are, did they even get a chance to read and understand even just a fraction of what is in this monster before voting on it? Obama is trying to slay the health care beast in one massive bill. That is a terrible strategic error on his part. It is a political battle no one can win. Why didn't he go for a series of small, non controversial bills that the public can support and the Republicans dare not vote against? Out of 2,000 pages, he can't find 100 or 200 pages worth of legislation with bipartisan support? Didn't he campaign on working together and finding common ground for CHANGE? Finding common ground in a 2,000 page bill is virtually impossible. Everyone is going to hate it in some way.

Obama is now trying to get a scaled down version of his bill passed, but this is what he should have been doing from the beginning. However, he has wasted so much of his political capital and created so much animosity with independent voters and Republicans that he may get nothing for all the work he's put in on this for the last year.

Obama will pay for this politically, but it is we the people that suffer. 46 million people have no health coverage and many are under insured. Half of all bankruptcies are due to medical costs. Cost are escalating and much of the increased cost have nothing to do with health care. Health care is an issue that can bankrupt the country if it is not brought under control...