It's like one of those old nightmares where everybody is in on the joke but you and they're all laughing at you for being so dumb. And no matter who you ask to explain what's going on, they won't tell you and just keep laughing. Only this wasn't any dream. It was a forum on the Democratic Party's Health Care initiave moderated by four of our local State Legislators.
Here's what the Legislative Democrats are trying to do. They're trying to pass some kind of legislation that commits the legislature to solving various well-documented Health Care issues in the State of Wisconsin by some date certain. Do what, exactly? There isn't any "what". There is just a "do something" with a set of broad goals.
Now it's obvious that being outnumbered in both the Assembly and the Senate, the Democrats will need a lot of aisle-crossing and true bi-partisan muscle to get "something" done...hell, they'll need all the bi-partisan support they can get just to get a "sense of the legislature" resolution on this issue. If they don't, then of course the Republican leadership can make absolutely certain that anything (resolution, legislation, whatever) gets assigned to committee and never sees the light of day.
That's when the awful moment happened.
As I read through the prepared handout it occurred to me that the Republicans would never be so accommodating as to give the Democrats even the tiniest of victories. Or, as P.T. Barnum
once said, "Never give a sucker an even break." I peeked over the handout and looked up at the panel and sure enough....There it was: They were ALL DEMOCRATS. There wasn't a single Republican on the panel.
I got it.
I got the joke.
There isn't going to be any Health Care Initiative.There's only a going to be a campaign issue for the 06 elections with a headline reading
Republicans Kill
Health Care Reform
The sad part is that I was probably the last person in the room to "get it".
After the conference, conversations with a couple of the legislators confirmed my guess. I was told that the Republican leadership has already dug in their heels and that they were refusing to participate in this effort.
So this state-wide effort is all form and no substance?
Maybe I've been living in the political "boondocks" for too long to recognize the sheer genius of this strategy. Maybe the logic goes something like this:
* We'll never get health care reform as long as the Repubs control the Legislature.
* The only way to retake the legislature is to defeat Republicans
* The only way to defeat Republicans is to let the public know it's the Repubs responsible for sky-high health care costs
* So make the Republicans responsible for killing healthcare reform.
So the FORM IS THE SUBSTANCE.
I guess when your party is hopelessly outnumbered, you play the best hand you've got.
Pictures will follow with edit
