On Last Night’s Debate
There were a few things that interested me during last night’s debate, and if you can’t blog about what interests you, what else should you blog about?
First, there was the tone of the debate. Senators Obama and Clinton were civil to each other throughout the debate, and at times, they were downright friendly; but there were other times, not when they were hostile but when they stood in adamant opposition to each other.
For example, during the healthcare portion of the debate, Senator Clinton trotted out her standard line about Sen. Obama’s healthcare plan, saying directly to him:
You know, when I proposed a universal health care plan, as did Senator Edwards, we took a big risk, because we know it’s politically controversial to say we’re going to cover everyone. And you chose not to do that. You chose to put forth a health care plan that will leave out at least 15 million people. That’s a big difference.
To which Senator Obama responded:
95% of our plans are similar…[but] we’ve got a philosophical difference… Senator Clinton believes the only way to achieve universal health care is to force everybody to purchase it, and my belief is the reason that people don’t have it is not because they don’t want it, but because they can’t afford it. And so I emphasize — reducing costs. … The notion that I am leaving 15 million people out somehow implies that we are different in our goals of providing coverage to all Americans, and that is simply not true. We think that there’s going to be a different way of getting there.
Now, there’s one thing I don’t get about Senator Clinton’s argument. The first is that her plan is politically inconvenient. In 1993, maybe it was inconvenient to push for universal healthcare, but it’s now fifteen years later and many of the opposing parties have opened their eyes. The reality of the boomer retirement is starting to take effect and the auto and airline companies, as well as local governments, have all realized that there’s no way they can stay solvent and satisfy their healthcare promises to their retirees. Even President Bush’s Secretary of Health and Human Services says, as part of his work with the Citizens’ Health Care Working Group, that “Americans clearly want a system that guarantees health care for everyone.” Perhaps the only thing that’s politically inconvenient about Senator Clinton’s stance is that she’s agreeing with a member of the Bush Administration.
At the same time, she’s kind of right. But here’s the thing. Standing for universal healthcare is not politically inconvenient because of the electorate. It’s politically inconvenient because of the power of the medical establishment (I should note that thousands of doctors and nurses, as well as dozens of medical organizations support universal healthcare; the opposition usually comes from the business end of the establishment). So when she’s saying it’s politically inconvenient to stand for universal healthcare, she’s really saying that she’s willing to “take on” the drug and insurance companies (of course, Sen. Clinton has received more donations from the health industry than any other candidate; not that this implies anything…no, not at all).
But here’s my question: hasn’t she already tried taking on the drug and insurance companies? And didn’t she fail miserably? And this was in 1993, before the Democrats lost control of Congress. In a conversation that was ostensibly about health care but was actually about what she sees as the difference between her and Senator Obama (namely, that he’s nothing but a bunch of pretty words), she said:
We’ve got to do the hard work…of overcoming a lot of the entrenched opposition to the very ideas that both of us believe in and some of us have been fighting for a very long time.
Yes, Senator Clinton, but you’ve been fighting and you’ve been losing for a very long time. Your method of steamrolling over that entrenched opposition doesn’t work. They have too much money. We need a different way. And frankly, Senator Clinton, there are many of us out here who simply don’t think you’re capable of doing anything but what you’ve always done, and that is to fight.
And we’re sick of the fighting.
As Senator Obama said:
You know, when I meet mothers who are trying to figure out how to get health care for their kids, it’s not just the desperation of that single mom. It’s also that when they’re trying to find some help, oftentimes they’re running into a brick wall. And they don’t get a sense that the debates that are happening in Washington right now relate to them at all. What they believe is that people are trying to get on TV, and they’re trying to score points, and they’re trying to win elections, and that they’re not interested in knocking down the barriers that stand between the American people and their dreams.
The movement that has gathered behind Senator Obama is not manifestation of Rodney King’s plea for us all to get along. It’s a plea for our political representatives to, as Senator Obama said, “go beyond the racal divisions and the religious divisions and the regional divisions that have plagued our politics for so long,” because if they can’t, “we’ll continue to see the kind of gridlock and nonperformance in Washington that is resulting in families suffering in very real ways.”
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The second thing I want to mention about last night’s debate is what Senator Obama referred to as “the silly season of politics.” In case you hadn’t heard (and before last night, I hadn’t), Senator Clinton’s campaign accused Sen. Obama of plagiarism. Here’s the YouTube video of what they’re talking about:
Here’s how Senator Obama responded:
[Governor] Deval is a national co-chairman of my campaign and suggested an argument that I share, that words matter, words are important…Now, the notion that I had plagiarized from somebody who’s one of my national co-chairs — who gave me the line and suggested I use it, is silly.
He’s right. And I think, you know, if she thought about, Senator Clinton would agree:
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And the third thing I want to mention is that Senator Obama suggested he would give a $4,000 tuition credit to every student for every year in exchange for national service. With close to a $100,000 debt in school loans, my question to him is: can those of us who’ve already graduated be grandfathered in?