Here’s the dirty secret behind Washington’s health-care “fight”: Democrats won everything in last year’s election.  You wouldn’t know it from the way President Barack Obama is blaming the GOP for his flagging health agenda. “There are those [read the GOP] who are advocating delay just as a desperation move to try to kill it,” complained White House budget director Peter Orszag. Republicans are working to “block health-care reform,” groused the president. “Republicans should immediately put an end to their political games,” demanded Democratic Rep. Chris van Hollen.  Indeed. The party of the left owns the White House, a filibuster-proof Senate, and a 70-seat House majority. As one House Republican aide quipped: “We could have every GOP congressman and their parents vote against a Democratic bill, and still not stop it.” All Democrats have to do is agree on something.  You can’t blame the GOP when you own every Washington institution.  That they can’t is testimony to Team Obama’s mismanagement of its first big legislative project. The president is a skilled politician and orator, but the real test of a new administration is whether it can shepherd a high-stakes bill through Congress. In retrospect, the mistakes are growing clear.  • Living in the short term: The administration thought it was clever back in February, using its $787 billion “stimulus” as an excuse to pass all manner of non-stimulating spending. But the bill sent deficits soaring, forcing those numbers to the center of today’s health debate and unnerving Democratic deficit hawks. Mr. Obama’s demand that a bill be deficit-neutral enthused House liberals to propose crushing tax hikes that further alienated conservative Democrats.  Mr. Obama boxed himself in on taxes back in his campaign. Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus and counterpart Chuck Grassley were merrily on their way to a bipartisan deal based on taxing existing health benefits. Yet having slammed John McCain for that idea, the White House vetoed the compromise, derailing an agreement. “The President is not helping us,” bluntly stated Mr. Baucus. “He does not want [that tax]. That’s making it difficult.”  • Unleashing Congress: Not wanting to repeat Hillary Clinton’s mistaken attempt to micromanage Congress, the administration took the equally dangerous path of no management at all. Left to wild impulses, Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman and Ted Kennedy took the most radical of Mr. Obama’s proposals (a public option entitlement) as a starting point, and ran left with new mandates, income tax surcharges, and business penalties. The House bill stirred a Blue Dog rebellion and mired the bill in committee. Mrs. Pelosi failed to include enticements for susceptible Republicans, leaving her hard-pressed to poach GOP votes.  The White House’s decision to let Mrs. Pelosi charge ahead with her climate bill has also been a disaster. To get that unpopular energy tax through, Mrs. Pelosi had to strip conservative Democrats of their committee rights and then arm-twist them into votes. Their egos and poll ratings bruised, this crew is balking at taking a second one for the team. “If you’re a member who voted for cap and trade and had a bad experience back home, you’re probably not looking forward to a bad vote on a health-care bill that’s not going to go anywhere in the Senate,” says Pennsylvania Blue Dog Jason Altmire.  • The perils of spin: Selling a huge expansion of government health care in the middle of a recession was never going to be easy. The Obama team hit on the argument that by adding to the government rolls, it would in fact save money and boost the economy.  Bizarre as this claim was, it became the administration’s prime rationale for “reform.” Until last week, when Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf blew it up, noting that the existing House and Senate bills would “significantly expand” federal costs. This gave Democratic senators such as North Dakota’s Kent Conrad an excuse to back away from existing bills, and place new emphasis on a highly uncertain Baucus compromise.  • False deadlines: Mr. Obama is right to worry this project is a race against time and falling poll numbers. But the administration’s unwavering demand for bills before recess led to the gridlock it hoped to avoid. The deadline inspired the House leadership to rush out a bill without consensus, further antagonizing the Blue Dogs. In the Senate, the pressure on Mr. Baucus to produce has very nearly pushed away Mr. Grassley, who Democrats need for cover.  A unified Republican message helped raise public alarm. But if they were the problem, Mr. Obama’s campaign arm, Organizing for America, wouldn’t be running TV ads that target his own Democrats. This debate has a stretch to go, and we’re about to see if the administration is nimble enough to adapt its strategy. Some Democrats are even hinting the White House needs to start over. At this point, that might not be bad advice.
Kimberley A. Strassel writes in Potomac Watch, her Wall Street Journal column, that the president’s approach on taxes, cap and trade, and the stimulus led Blue Dog Democrats as well as Chuck Grassley and Max Baucus to diverge from him on health care.