GREAT BEND, Kan. - When President Obama decided to take on the difficult issue of health care reform, former Clinton advisers whom still had scars on their backs from their own failed health care initiative in 1993, advised the President, to wit: "Don't initiate your own detailed health care plan. The opposition and press will pick apart your plan. Instead, let Congress come up with the plan. Then you can step in."
So as Howard Fineman said recently: "Obama took all his political capital and let Max Baucus squander it." Max Baucus, the Democrat Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee from Montana, botched it.
Baucus, who could walk through any shopping mall in America (outside the Beltway and Montana) and not be recognized by a single person, held the keys to health care reform. And he had taken so much cash from "Big Medicine" that there was no hope for any bill that would help "We the People."
As someone wrote recently, Baucus' staff is filled with former insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists, and all his former staffers now work as health insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists. Baucus is a poster boy for term limits. And he rendered the health care bill so lousy for middle America that not even Zig Ziglar could sell it.
I think Democrats should stick together, and avoid "circular firing squads." But this Baucus's Democrat credentials are looking pretty thin.
And only by good luck - the luck of when his Senatorial terms come up for reelection, has he been able to keep his job this long. His first stroke of good luck came when he ran for Congress in 1974 - in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon took place days before the election, and Baucus was elected as a Democrat in a "red state." Give him credit for knowing when to run, for seizing an opportunity. Then he won reelection in 1976, the year Jimmy Carter was elected President. And this is where the pure luck comes in.
You see, Senators only have to face the voters every six years. Baucus was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1978. This gave him a six year term, and he was not on the ballot the year Reagan realigned the U.S. political system in 1980. Had he been on the ballot in 1980, he would have lost.
1994 was another meltdown for Democrats. But Baucus was lucky again. He was not up for reelection until 1996, and he won again.
Two of his Senate victories came on nights that Democrats were swept into the White House - 1996 (Clinton's second term victory) and 2008 (Obama's victory.) But the key for his survival in a "red state" is that by being a Senator with six year terms, he was not on the ballot during the two Republican tsunamis that would have sent him packing: 1980 (Reagan), and 1994 (Newt Gingrich).
You can't resent another man's good fortune. But the way he gutted the health care bill and let insurance and drug company lobbyists write major portions of the thing did severe damage to the Democratic party, and hurt the President badly.
I am reminded of what John F. Kennedy said upon his nomination to the Presidency in 1960. At the convention, the Governor of Florida angrily confronted JFK: "I'm against Civil Rights, and also these programs to help seniors and the poor."
"Well, why don't you register as a Republican?" said Kennedy, always quick with a comeback.
If Democrats are not going to fight for everyday citizens, if they are going to carry water for big corporations and monopolies at the expense of the little guy, well, the party is without purpose. It's not too late to do the right thing. Reading a little William Jennings Bryan or Harry Truman might do Baucus some good.
I was lucky to meet Montana Governor Schweitzer a year ago in Topeka. He was as common as an old shoe. He was kind enough to sign an autograph for me, but then he really lit up when I asked him: "Did you know Evel Knievel?" He regaled me for five minutes with tales of Montana native Knievel, while others waited to talk to him.
The future of the Democratic party stands with guys like Schweitzer, champions of the people. It's not too late for Baucus to change course, but don't bet on it.
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