My friend and astute analyst of all things political, Eric W., sent me the following note for possible blog note fodder:

I’ve long expected that the GOP would win a substantial number of Congressional seats in November, and that the Obama administration would follow the path charted by Bill Clinton in moving to the center.  I’m worried that if Brown wins in the Senate (although of course that’s a good thing), the triangulation would start now and the win in November would be smaller…

Despite Eric’s declining to write up the note himself, in line with my request for guest postings during my vacation, I think it’s an interesting enough topic for me to write about…and I think Eric may be on to something.

So here goes…

While Senator Conrad (D-MT) is still making noises about passing health care through a reconciliation process (which is used for budget-related matters and can be passed with 51 votes), statements by both moderate (Webb) and liberal (Durbin) Senators saying that the Senate should not act on health care until Scott Brown is seated makes that unlikely.  That said, Harry Reid is probably thinking like Conrad…

Still, it’s likely that Webb and Durbin will win this argument and that the Senate will attempt to become the political moderating influence for which it was designed by our Founders.

On the House side, much depends on whether Nancy Pelosi is more interested in passing health care “reform” now or in remaining Speaker of the House or even a member of the majority. (At this point, it appears that she does not have the votes in the House to pass the Senate bill.)  Of course, my statement implies that passing health care “reform” (as it’s been presented thus far) now would lead to electoral disaster for the Democrats in November, but Pelosi might not see it that way.  Indeed, as I noted on Wednesday, David Axelrod seems to think that the opposite is true, that failure to pass a bill now would be terrible for Democrats, and that the best strategy for the Dems would be to pass a bill now and explain it later.

With a typical president, I’d expect Axelrod to lose the argument.  I’d expect the president and the Democratic leaders in Congress to think about things like the Politico’s recent article “Obama’s first year: What went wrong” and recognize that (as I’ve written many times on these pages) the election results from 2006 and 2008 did not represent a mandate for liberalism in America.

If they were to realize that and begin to try to govern from the center, or just slightly to the left of center, they might regain the trust of some independent voters who, unfortunately, might be fooled twice into thinking the leopard could change its spots.  They could also greatly increase their chances of legislative success by peeling off Olympia Snowe and/or Susan Collins and/or Lindsey Graham on any given issue.  In most cases, success breeds support; it’s not happening with health care “reform” because so much of the country is against the rationing and tax hikes it will bring us.

Bill Clinton – who was already a seasoned triangulator, unlike our current president –  cruised to a second term by at least appearing to govern from the center.  Eric’s point is that if Obama decided in the same strategy, proposing policies and marketing them as above and between the views of congressional Democrats and Republicans, and if he then created enough “bipartisanship” to get those policies enacted, he could save the Democrats’ electoral bacon in November.

While Obama has always presented himself as above the rest, he never made a credible case of being anything like bipartisan or nonpartisan. His rare attempts were completely incredible in any case, even less believable than his claims to be post-partisan as he lords over the most racist (anti-white, in this case) administration in more than a generation.  Obama has thus far positioned himself not as the high point in a political triangle but as the left-most point on a political line, somewhat to the left of the Democrats in Congress and impossibly far left of the Republicans.

While Eric is certainly right that Democratic triangulation would likely save a few Democratic seats in November, I’m not as worried about it as he is.  First, I think people have seen who the Democrats really are and, although the public has a short memory, will probably not forget as soon as November.  You can bet the Republicans will try to make sure people don’t forget.

Secondly, I don’t think triangulation is in Obama’s nature.  Almost immediately after Scott Brown’s loss, Barack Obama again hit the airwaves to blame voters’ frustrations on the Bush Administration.  This is getting old fast and at this point only sells in far-left political circles.  The problem is that Obama lives in an echo chamber of far-left radicals, people who follow Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” like their bible (or my “Atlas Shrugged").  Obama believes that people still blame everything on Bush because the people around him do. Obama believes that America was changed, by the Bush Administration and bad behavior by congressional Republicans, from a center-right nation into a left-leaning nation, doing over the course of 8 years something that hadn’t happened in our 225 year prior history, including during the reigns of FDR and the combination of JFK & LBJ.

My guess is that Democrats in the aggregate will very slightly back off their most aggressively fascist proposals but not to a point that you’d say they are triangulating, at least not among their leadership.  They believe that a failure to pass health care “reform” will spell electoral disaster.  Indeed, it might, because they have bet the ranch on it.  But not as much of a disaster as passing it would.  One way out is to make the bill appear to be more moderate and then coopt one Republican Senator to go along.  But that’s not as much of a political savior as some might think; people will still not view the product as bipartisan but just as there being one Democrat in Republican clothing willing to go along with a far-left bill.

The Hill is reporting that “There is growing consensus in the House Democratic Caucus that comprehensive healthcare legislation is dead and the only option is to pass a series of piecemeal measures."  For reasons of economic sanity and the preservation of the world’s best health-care system, as well as for hard-knuckle political reasons, Republicans should oppose almost every single bill that comes to the floor this way.  They should support only measures that allow interstate competition in health insurance and tort reform…and of course neither of those will come to the floor unless attached to the worst parts of the current legislation as the Democrats try to peel off one RINO vote.  The best political strategy for the Republicans happens to be the strategy best for American citizens: Just Say No!

There will be some “moderate” Democrats, which means Democrats who are not in safely Democratic seats, who “move to the center". But they are not the party’s leadership…and never will be.  Still, it is possible that losing even one or two Democrats could doom most of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid far-left agenda as long as the GOP stays united or only loses one Senator from Maine from time to time. (They’d do well to lose the Senators from Maine in any case…)

Obama is an unreconstructed left-wing radical. Triangulation is not in his nature. So if it is to happen it would have to be forced upon him. Beyond the question of whether he’s even capble of triangulating with an ego that can fill the West Wing, it’s far from clear that his closest advisors or the Democratic leaders in Congress think it’s a good idea.

I look forward to Eric’s response to these thoughts…