At Least You Have Your Healthcare

President Obama and the Democrats scored a big victory this week with the passage of the healthcare bill. Other people(Ezra Klein and Jonathan Cohn are my go to people) can talk about the substance of the bill better than I can but I want to focus on some of the political aspects.

The passage of this bill means the Democrats will maintain their majority in 2010. Various historic and political trends will mean Republicans gain congressional seats but since they did not defeat Obama and congressional Democrats then they will not gain the majority. Unlike in 94, Democrats have a success to blunt the Republican criticism and popular items they can use to attack Republicans for opposing.

Republicans know this and know the magnitude of this defeat. They also know they lost to an African-American and a woman and many conservatives can't stand that fact either. The world is changing and the old guard is giving way to the new. The healthcare bill demonstrates that the new guard can do what they said they were going to do and that they will be around for a while.

So, Kudos to President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Sen Harry Reid(who may well have sacrificed his seat) and every Democrat who voted for the bill for achieving the biggest legislative advancement since the Great Society and hopefully ushering an area of more progressive governance.