Coakley Loss Aftermath: Obama Recruiting Kamikazes

January 20, 2010 Washington Post Classified Ad: Wanted: Sitting U.S. Senator or U.S. Congressmen willing to join political suicide mission to salvage takeover of health care. Ideal applicant will be fearless kamikaze type willing to sacrifice political career to advance socialist agenda, however, obedient lemmings also encouraged to apply. Applicant must be willing to disregard the approaching sound of voter’s footsteps or the sight of angry citizens with pitchforks.

After Tuesday’s political Tsunami in Massachusetts, the pool of Democrats willing to fall on the Obama care sword is shrinking dramatically. Democrats in the House and Senate find themselves uncomfortably trapped between a rock and a hard place. Martha Coakley, the political canary in the mine, has expired from the toxic vapors of voter anger directed towards failed big government policies. Democrats running for reelection in the November 2010 elections will be facing an electorate that is decidedly more conservative than the voters in blue state Massachusetts who did the unthinkable; elected a Republican to succeed Ted Kennedy.

With anxiety for their political futures ramping up to all-time career highs, House and Senate Democrats in short order will have to contend with their “too liberal for America” leadership who soon come knocking on their doors for a special mission. The anxious Democratic rank and file will learn that their draft numbers has come up, they have been enlisted into Obama’s army and their first and possibly last assignment will be to ride point on the career ending death march called health reform. Regretably, heading north to Canada like some of them did to escape the draft in the 1970’s is not an option.

The majority of these Democrats will soon rue the day Obama rode into the Beltway on his high horse proclaiming the nebulous mantra of change. The only question is how many Democrats over the next few days and weeks will be heard to mutter under their breaths “not the kind of change I expected”.

Can it be that Obama will have the audacity to push forward with the ever so unpopular health reform initiative, after the Massachusetts upset of Ted Kennedy heir apparent Martha Coakley? Well, Obama’s tin eared response to the electorate’s discontent is coming from the same man who titled his early biography “The Audacity of Hope” so no real surprise there.

What are the pundits saying? Fox News contributor Juan Williams opined that Obama will not be deterred in the least by Martha Coakley’s shocking loss. Instead, Obama will “double up” efforts to get health care reform passed by whatever means, regardless of the political cost.

However, Indiana Senator Evan Bayh ventured that a more centrist strategy is called for, stating that the Democratic party needs to heed the results of the Massachusetts election. Senator Bayh urged his fellow Democrats to move ideologically towards the center and distant itself from the extreme left which has dominated the Democratic leadership recently.

However, Obama and the Senate and House Democratic leadership have so far exhibited a nearly suicidal determination to push forward with their wrongheaded health industry takeover. Democrat leaders have invested so much of their rapidly diminishing political capital that failure is not an option they are willing to consider. As such, they appear to be suffering from the never before diagnosed sickness called health industry takeover syndrome (HITS)

As such, Obama and the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate are not likely to heed Senator Bayh’s “President Clinton-like” move to the center and start working on less divisive issues. However, if they doggedly pursue health care reform they will likely find it exceedingly difficult to marshal support from their rank and file. If there is a significant defection of Democrats from the shaky health reform coalition, Obama’s last ditch effort to recruit political kamikazes will begin in earnest.

We will soon find out whether Obama will succeed in finding a few feckless Democrat loyalists to shore up the health care initiative’s weakened flank. If Obama and the liberal Democrat leaders obstinately continue pushing health care reform over the objections of the electorate, perhaps the politically shrewdest strategy for the Republicans would be to voice objections but not interfere too much with the Democrats self-destructive behavior.

Napoleon Bonaparte once said “Never interrupt your enemy while they are making a mistake.” This might be good advice for Republicans to follow, assuming our country survives intact the onslaught of the extreme leftist ideologues who, for the time being, are still in charge.

By Mark Henry