When President Obama and Congress return next month to confront tough choices on health reform, will Sen. Edward Kennedy's death be the catalyst for finally achieving what he called the cause of his life, health care for all? It's possible, but we don't know yet exactly how.
The debate is about to enter a new phase, which will require much stronger leadership from Obama. He'll have to define what he wants and keep Senate Democrats on course. He'll have to choose between continued negotiations with Republicans or moving ahead with Democrats alone. And he'll have to decide whether and how much to invoke Kennedy's memory in his call to action.
A multitude of people and groups (from MoveOn.org to the National Jewish Democratic Council and the Business and Professional Women Foundation, to name just three) are urging that reform be passed quickly as a tribute to Kennedy. John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff who now heads the liberal Center for American Progress, said some senators will take from Kennedy's death a resolve "to push forward and push through health reform."
It's unlikely, however, that Republicans will feel that way. "Obviously he had many friends on the other side of the aisle, but ultimately they're judging this on the basis of their own politics," Podesta said Wednesday on a conference call.
Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, a close friend of Kennedy's, said as much Wednesday on CNN. "Are you willing to get back into those negotiations with the Democrats right now in memory -- in honor of Senator Kennedy?" Wolf Blitzer asked him, referring to months of talks among a handful of Senate Finance Committee members. Only on "the right kind of bipartisan legislation," which this isn't, Hatch replied.
How about Democrats going it alone? Before Kennedy died, the party nominally had a 60-vote majority in the Senate, just enough to stop a filibuster. Now that's down to 59 votes. But Massachusetts Democrats are softening their opposition to a request Kennedy made in July to name an interim senator to serve until a special election in January. The temporary senator would not run for the permanent seat. Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, on Wednesday called the plan "entirely reasonable" and said he'd sign it if lawmakers sent it to his desk.
Initial reaction to Kennedy's proposal was negative, in part, because it was not so long ago that the Legislature imposed the special-election requirement. At the time the Democrats' goal was to block former Gov. Mitt Romney from appointing a Republican if Democratic Sen. John Kerry won the presidency in 2004. They don't want to look "craven and hypocritical" now, said Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
On the other hand, at a crucial time for Obama's top agenda items, including health, energy and financial reforms, should Massachusetts go for five or six months without a senator? And which Democrat in the state would like to take the blame if Kennedy's health care vision fails by one vote?
Yes, Ornstein said, operating with 59 votes as opposed to 60 makes a significant difference. "So many of these votes may come down to one vote," he said of health reform. Ironically, a healthy temporary senator would give Democrats a measure of security they haven't had in months, as Kennedy's decline kept him from Washington and the Senate floor.
That still leaves the problem of moderate Democrats, who are resisting party unity, and of Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who is 91 and was hospitalized for much of the spring. He did come to the floor last month to vote for Sonia Sotomayor's elevation to the Supreme Court. Democratic leaders will have to hope that Byrd does not become incapacitated in office, and that they'll find the key to keeping the party together.
That could be Kennedy, who inevitably will cast an emotional and influential shadow over the debate. "He was a revered figure, a beloved figure...and people are going to be reluctant to just leave his dream hanging. That's a psychological factor that will operate on everybody," a Democratic strategist told me. "Obama is certainly in a position to make that a stronger factor. But you have to be careful how you use that. If it's too blatantly political, you lose people instead of gaining them."
The other must-to-avoid is a fantasy about what would have happened had Kennedy been a public part of the health reform process all along. It is probably true, as Ornstein told me, that the health bill from Kennedy's committee would have greatly overshadowed the endless and apparently fruitless Finance Committee contortions if Kennedy had been there in person to lead his committee. But I don't agree with Hatch's contention that "had Teddy not suffered this terrible malady ... we would have worked it out on a bipartisan basis and it wouldn't have been the tremendous mess it's in today." I can't believe that when in the next breath, Hatch says he won't be drawn into negotiations on "some partisan hack job."
Let's face it, one person's partisan hack job is another person's principled, sincere attempt to improve health care, get a handle on costs, cover 47 million uninsured, give more security to the rest of us, and somehow pay for it all so we don't add to our deficits and burden future generations. There are some differences even Kennedy wouldn't have been able to bridge. At this juncture, with a strong ally in the White House and Democratic majorities in Congress, maybe he wouldn't have been inclined to.