Brian Beutler suggest that Obama’s plan for health care is to, in effect, divide Congress up into obstructionists and reformers and ask the Showboating Six et al. which side they’re on.
Here’s what I wonder: can Obama (or in reality Rahm Emanuel) go to someone like Bayh and tell him that they’ll try to destroy him if he doesn’t get on board? Get him a primary challenger next time around, put the full weight of the DSCC and DNC behind the challenger. Black ball him and his family from any lobbying and think tank gigs as much as possible. I don’t know enough about DC to know if this kind of thing can be done (and frankly, I don’t go for this kind of tough guy talk in general). But this quote from Haley Barbour got me thinking a bit:
He said he also has high regard for Obama’s political team. “They’re tough as nails,” he said. “This the first White House since [Richard] Nixon that K Street is afraid of.”
To what extent can a powerful president push a Senator around? Obviously, this could only be done on the most important votes, not as a matter of course. But occasionally? It certainly seemed like Bush-Rove were able to do something like this from 2002 to 2006. Anyway, I have no idea what the answer is to any of this.