In late 2007, when he was campaigning against Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democrat nomination for president, Sen. Barack Obama said Sen. Clinton would be unable to build bipartisan support for major legislation if she became president. She could eke out only bare majorities, he said, and that is no way to govern.
Contrasting his own consensus-building skills with Sen. Clinton’s, he said, “We’re not going to pass universal health care with a 50-plus-one strategy. We’re not going to have a serious bold energy policy of the sort that I proposed yesterday unless you build a working majority.”
Asked in the same interview whether he was a better candidate than Sen. Clinton because he could attract broad support for major bills, he replied, “Yes.”
Fast-forward two and a half years. President Obama has abandoned even the pretense of seeking bipartisan support for his trillion-dollar-plus ObamaCare socialized medical care proposal. He is eagerly pursuing a “50-plus-one” strategy to get ObamaCare passed despite practically zero Republican support — and grave doubts among quite a few in his own party.
Comparing the president’s past statements with his current strategy, The Associated Press reported, “He now wants congressional Democrats to move ahead without Republican support and pass the legislation with a bare majority in the Senate instead of the broader majority he favored as a presidential candidate.”
But while Congress’ support for ObamaCare is wobbly, support by the public at large has faded even faster — down to only 25 percent, according to a recent CNN poll. Almost everyone else surveyed wanted Congress to come up with a new and different proposal or to halt reform altogether.
President Obama used to say he believed in consensus. It is hard to square that today with his continued support for a terribly unpopular health care reform plan.