...Crunch Time...

This is directly from "Crunch Time", an article in the latest The Economist, but I love it's sentiment. I know it's a liberal rag, but they do a great job of finding their way to the middle.

"A policy of ramming bills through Congress on a party-line basis might suit Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats’ leftish leader in the House. But, from Mr Obama’s point of view, it is bad politics in two different ways. It is shifting the presidency to the left, annoying centrist voters who worry about the swelling government debt. And it may not even get the bills through. Conservative Democrats, many of whom represent right-leaning states and districts recently captured from the Republicans (see article), are nervous about backing bills without bipartisan support. Over 40 of them broke ranks in the House over the climate-change bill. Now there is the likelihood that health reform, like the climate-change bill, will be deferred until the autumn, when fears about the deficit will have grown and the two expensive bills could combine to spook voters.

What should Mr Obama do? He must come down from his cloud and start leading. The House Democrats could be usefully reminded that their present 78-seat margin owes everything to the president’s coat-tails; they are endangering his popularity. Mr Obama should also court centrist Republicans. That means getting into the nitty-gritty: Republicans can hardly be expected to save Mr Obama’s presidency unless they get something solid in return. For instance, one way to pay for bringing the uninsured into the health-care system (a noble Democratic priority) is to scrap a distorting tax-deduction that veils the true cost of health insurance, a policy espoused by John McCain last year. A real “post-partisan” president would be trying to bully through this compromise, not talking dreamily about wanting health care for all at no cost to anybody but the rich. And on the subject of detail, precise talk from the president about how he intends to grapple with government debt would reassure a lot of centrist waverers."