Where’s Tom Daschle When We Need Him?

Thursday, 28 January 2010 15:48

Written by Sam Hurst

How could a year (or five decades) of Congressional effort to reform the nation's failed health care system come so quickly to nothing? Was it all a mirage? The nation has spent the last year peering inside the tortured, corrupt, inner sanctum of Senate rules and procedures (the sausage factory)...to what end? "Oh, well...never mind."

When conservative populist Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate race last week, the first reflection he offered was: Why should taxpayers in Massachusetts have to pay for a corrupt Medicaid bail-out for Nebraska? Inadvertently, Brown tore the veil off Senate culture, and in doing so, he exposed why President Obama's health reform failure may have set its roots over a year ago in the tax scandal of former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle.

In the first weeks after the Obama victory, Tom Daschle was slated for the job of Secretary of Health and Human Services. He was so close to the new President that he also planned to work on health reform from an office inside the White House. But Daschle was not golden because he was close to the inexperienced President, or because he had a managerial knack for running huge bureaucracies like HHS. Daschle's true power was that he understood the Senate. A career of wrestling farm subsidies and defense appropriations from Democratic and Republican colleagues alike had given Tom Daschle insights that only a handful of politicians ever grasp. He understood the Senate's culture of the deal. Daschle understood what Scott Brown voters in Massachusets do not. Ben Nelson was just being a good Nebraska Senator. Daschle had extorted similar deals when he was a senior Senator. The most obvious example was his arm-twisting assertion of raw political power to keep Ellsworth Air Force Base open despite the non-partisan, independent judgment of the Base Closing Commission that it was in the national interest to close the base. Rather than criticizing him for making a corrupt local deal for his home state, Spouth Dakotans applauded his tough fist-on-the-table manipulation of Senate culture. Had Nelson done any different?

In the first months of the new administration, it became clear that President Obama intended to cede the legislative strategy for health reform to the Senate. Commentators wondered why Obama would not use his enormous post-election popularity to lead the health reform campaign himself, and most came to the conclusion that he had determined not to make the same mistakes that Bill and Hillary Clinton made in 1992-3, when they tried to use the power of the White House to run over Congress. The analysis had a certain historical symmetry to it. Besides, President Obama may have been inexperienced, but what little experience he had in national politics was rooted in his relationships in the Senate.

Now, it seems clear that the decision to give the Senate control over the content of health reform was made with the expectation and confidence that Tom Daschle would personally manage and control the process. Daschle (not Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, whose experience was in the House) would manage the deal-making. Seen from the perspective of Daschle's unique influence, the small, secretive, collegial Senate culture seemed like a much more controlled place to do the hard bargaining that everyone expected, than the hyper-partisan House of Representatives. Also, putting the task of writing a health reform bill in the hands of people like Max Baucus of Montana, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, may have terrified liberal members of Congress from urban states, but it didn't terrify Daschle. He understood better than anyone how hard he could push Senators like Baucus, Conrad and nelson He knew how to make deals with prairie Senators.

The political strategy of health reform was quite well thought out until Daschle's fortunes were crushed by revelations that he had tax problems.

It is not clear to me whether Daschle was forced out, or decided to fall on his own sword-or both. But Obama dropped him like a hot potato. For months reporters claimed that Daschle was still giving intimate advice to the President and the White House health reform team. But in the exaggerated partisan environment that quickly developed in Congress, Daschle was damaged goods, red meat for Republicans looking to score political points by tarring Obama with Daschle's tax indiscretions. The whole point of the original Senate strategy was that Daschle would wield his influence behind the scenes. His tax scandal made that impossible.

What is also clear is that the political strategy to push health reform through Congress by relying on the Senate was not changed or adapted to the new reality of Daschle's lost influence. Obama chose Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebilius, as his Secretary of Health and Human Services. She had neither the Senate experience nor the personality, to lead the old men in the Senate. Daschle mentoring Sebilius was like the ancient metaphor of "pushing a string".

Obama was committed to a Senate strategy without a trail boss, which led to excruciating delays, leadership bungling, and renegade exhibitionism by Senators who were out of step with the public mood. With Daschle removed to the margins, Obama also lost the most experienced, articulate Democratic voice for health reform to stand up to Republican exaggerations, like Sarah Palin's claim that the reforms would create "death panels" for the elderly.

It is easy to suggest now that Obama should have pivoted quickly. Without Daschle he should have backed off the Senate strategy and used his own relationship with the American people to lead the health reform campaign. Instead, he stuck with the Senate strategy, and the rest of the story is, as they say, a mess. Daschle is still trying. Last week he implored the House of Representatives to pass the Senate version of the health reform bill to avoid any further Senate votes , and to neutralize the effects of Brown's election. But the House isn't the Senate. It is much more sensitive to the bright light of public scorn.

Health reform is dead for the near future. Rarely has one man's misfortune had such a deep and tragic impact on the fate of the nation.