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What does Blanche Lincoln want, and why does she want it?
The question is, at the moment, more consequential than it might normally be. As a member of the small, happy band of moderate Democrats who control the fate of health care reform, the heretofore obscure senior senator from Arkansas has been getting a lot of attention lately from both opponents and supporters of reform. Sheâs also been fielding a lot more calls from reporters: The Washington Post published a profile of Lincoln about a week ago, and in the last few days she has been at the center of stories in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and Politico.
Which makes it a bit surprising that, from reading this latest round of coverage, itâs actually kind of hard to tell what Lincoln wants. While these stories devote a lot of space to Lincolnâs political predicamentâsupporting the bill could make her more vulnerable to Republican attacks in her 2010 re-election campaign, while opposing it could cost her vital Democratic supportâthey say little about her policy priorities other than her opposition to any meaningful public option.
Actually, the NYTâs Lincoln story, which appeared in print Sunday, said even less than that. As Spencer Ackerman notes, the story doesnât explain any of Lincolnâs misgivings about the Democratic proposal. After quoting Lincolnâs vague comment that she is âthinking about the 450,000 Arkansans who have no health insurance,â the article immediately moves on to its real interest:
Yet the political implications are inescapable. Of the swing-state Democrats struggling with the health care issue, Mrs. Lincoln, a 49-year-old mother of twins who is married to a physician, is one of the few set to be on the ballot next year. Republicans are lining up to oppose her in a state where President Obama performed badly in the 2008 election.
And so on. We never do hear Lincolnâs views about what she thinks will help those Arkansans. To be fair to the Times, its main story on the Senate bill did quote Lincolnâs floor statement, in which she announced that she would not support the âpublic optionâ as currently proposed. Normally, though, a story dedicated to a key lawmakerâs role should include more detail about her views, not less, than the general wrap-up.
The LA Times and Politico pieces, which both appear to be more ambitious and more deeply reported than the Times story, fare better, but only to a point. The LAT article offers reporting from Arkansas, so readers actually get to meet some of Lincolnâs constituents. Again, though, the focus is on Lincolnâs political dilemma. It isnât until near the end of the story that we hear anything about her views, and even then itâs pretty thin:
After equivocating, Lincoln came out against the [public option], even with a provision allowing states to opt out. As federal taxpayers, she said, Arkansans would be “on the hook” for any costs regardless of the state’s participation.
âŚTrue to her moderate leanings, Lincoln talks of incremental change. She noted that many of the uninsured in Arkansas — about 500,000, or roughly 1 in 6 — could be covered under existing programs, such as Medicare, if they just signed up. “I have a problem with trying to re-create the wheel,” Lincoln said.
Replace the LATâs quotes from Lincolnâs Arkansan constituents with some comments from inside-the-Beltway types, and youâll have a pretty good sense of what the Politico story is like. After an opening anecdote and some boilerplate quotes from Lincoln, weâre into the territory of approval ratings, political strategists, and micro-scandals about when her intentions became public. And then, finally, this:
On Saturday, Lincoln stressed that, in the end, she would not vote for Reidâs version of the public option, which would allow states to opt out of the plan. She said she wanted a complete âalternativeâ to the public plan, such as nonprofit insurance providers that would compete with private insurers.
It sounds like she may be harking back to the discarded âco-opâ ideaâbut thatâs not really clear, because the story doesnât pursue this thread.
The best of the recent Lincoln profiles may be the earliest, Shailagh Murrayâs Washington Post piece of Nov. 17. Nearly a week before Lincolnâs shifting views on the public option caught the attention of the Web world, the Post documented Lincolnâs newfound resistance to the proposal. The article also noted a few of her policy concerns other than the public option (small business coverage, the cost of medical procedures, coordinating care).
But the Post story has weaknesses, too, including its failure to explore Lincolnâs statement that we âcanât affordâ a âgovernment-funded public option.â She doesnât agree with most of her caucus on this point, so what accounts for the difference? Is she interpreting the facts differently? Is she working from a different set of values? How does she explain the shift in her thinking? Can she explain the shift in her thinking? And is the public option the sum total of her interest in health care reformâis there anything she values that isnât in the bill? From these stories, itâs not clear.
This is, in part, the old, earnest complaint that political journalists should spend more time on policy and less on politics: a profile of Lincoln could have been a vehicle to explore the ongoing debate over, for example, the public option. At the very least, it could have mentioned her policy views before the closing paragraphs.
But these stories donât really even deliver on the political level, becauseâjust as you canât seriously discuss potential policy alternatives without noting political constraintsâyou canât explain how someone might respond to a political dilemma without discussing what her policy priorities are. It makes sense for the press to focus on the political pressures and constraints Lincoln faces; if she wants to keep her seat, those factors are no doubt on her mind. At the same time, though, Lincoln is in that seat for a reason: she has policy goals that she would like to achieve. Maybe sheâs being straightforward about those goals; maybe sheâs being cagey. Maybe theyâre well-reasoned and on point; maybe theyâre incoherent. We donât really know, because the coverage doesnât say. And by giving scant attention to that seemingly straightforward angle, the press underplayed a key part of the story.
Greg Marx is an associate editor at CJR. Follow him on Twitter @gregamarx. Has America ever needed a media defender more than now? Help us by joining CJR today.