Like Admiral Farragut at Mobile Bay during the Civil War, Madame Speaker took in Tuesday’s Republican landslides in Virginia and New Jersey, lashed herself to the rigging and ordered, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” on health care.
Moderate Blue Dog Democrats, without the safety of Pelosi’s liberal San Francisco district, deserve sympathy for seeing explosive risk everywhere in her health care vote — a trillion-dollar price tag, a government-run insurance option, mandates on businesses and new taxes, all with no prospect for actually doing something to slow soaring health care costs.
Rep. Parker Griffith, a freshman Democrat from Alabama, told Politico that some members are worried leadership’s big-government agenda, signified by health care, could "cost some of our front-line members their seats” in Congress. "I should be nervous,” Griffith said.
Too bad. The speaker has spoken. Moderates are on their own, forced to choose between their leadership and their constituents. Fortunate are members like Rep. Dan Boren, D-Muskogee, who said no on health care months ago. The fence-straddlers now must weigh what they’ve seen and heard against Pelosi’s rhetoric.
The broader landscape is hard to ignore: Across the country, Americans expressed deep reservation about the Democrats’ health care proposals in town hall meetings this summer. This week voters in Virginia and New Jersey told exit pollsters they’re worried about the country’s economic direction — the ballooning budget deficit, cap-and-trade’s true costs to taxpayers and employers, and health care.
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