Given the current configuration of Congress, the fate of health care is likely to depend, in the end, on the incentives confronting conservative Democrats. If they feel that passage of a particular version of “health care reform” will strengthen their re-election prospects in 2010 or 2012, it will probably pass. If they don’t, it almost certainly won’t. The president, of course, has a role to play in trying to shift those incentives by swaying public opinion. But that’s an indirect route to influence, and one in which he’s competing with a lot of other people who know how to play this game.
Campaign Desk
10:34 AM - August 19, 2009
The Limits of the ‘It’s Obama’s Fault’ Narrative
Bush didn’t steamroll Congress, either
‘See you on the other side’ - Meet Jessica Lum, a terminally ill 25-year-old who chose to spend what little time she had practicing journalism
#Realtalk: This is the best moment to be in journalism - The old stuff isn’t coming back, but that’s okay
Streams of consciousness - Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism?
Sticking with the truth - How ‘balanced’ coverage helped sustain the bogus claim that childhood vaccines can cause autism
An ink-stained stretch - Can Aaron Kushner save the Orange County Register—and the newspaper industry?
If cable is dying, why is it still making so much money?
The story behind one of the best business models in the country
What TVGuide.com watchlist data reveals about the season’s new dramas
“What was once genre is now the Zeitgeist”
Josh Barro, the loneliest Republican
What to make of the 28-year-old columnist’s contempt for the GOP—and its would-be reformers
Dowd and Fournier and countless others who have launched similar complaints are asking, “Why aren’t we getting what we were promised?”
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
This is a solid piece and I agree with much of it, but there's no question that Obama has made numerous mistakes and his political acumen is overrated.
"But much of this criticism proceeds from the assumption that a different approach—either more detailed, or more aggressively partisan, or more specific and straightforward—would have commanded majority support in Congress. Where’s the evidence for that assumption?"
Back in '02, President Bush sold us a unilateral war that nobody needed against a country that didn't attack us, and despite the fact the Democrats had 50 Senators (and Jeffords, if you count him), Bush got 29 of them to vote Aye on the resolution.
I think the real question is whether there is any incentive for Democrats who are already in corporate pockets to pass genuine health care reform. Even if Max Baucus loses in the next election, his income will skyrocket thanks to the profiteers he is protecting right now.
Billy Tauzin knows that lobbying is much more lucrative and less stressful than holding public office.
#1 Posted by Hardrada, CJR on Fri 21 Aug 2009 at 04:09 PM
I had got a desire to begin my own firm, nevertheless I did not earn enough of money to do it. Thank God my friend recommended to utilize the personal loans. Therefore I took the consolidation loans and made real my desire.
#2 Posted by SUMMERS28Marva, CJR on Sun 28 Feb 2010 at 05:27 AM