Various blogs [including Balkanization, 6/22] has cited a recent Washington Post piece by Jonathan Chait that argues that 2000 was the election that truly mattered, though he focuses on economic policy. The problem partly is a result of Sen. Kerry's decision to focus his campaign somewhat narrowly for strategic (assumed successful message) and practical (likelihood of success) reasons. Chait in fact argues that Kerry's message is (to be blunt) somewhat fake. For instance, President Bush did not have too much power to affect job numbers and gas prices, especially vis-à-vis a President Gore/Kerry.
I share Chait's concerns though partly because economic matters will not really be the most important factor in my decision in November. Economic talking points do tend to sound better than they actually are, a fact Gov. Bush took advantage of in 2000. Also, I do sometimes wish Kerry had a more general and emotionally exciting message (akin to Dean and Edwards) than his usual political nuanced style. All the same, if Chait's thesis is that 2004 overall will not be as important as 2000, I would disagree.
The basic issue is that re-election will in fact or in effect be a clear mandate for the President. This is in some important ways more important than the fact that President Kerry will in various ways be stuck with the policies he inherits, only able to tinker with many of them. "This too shall pass" ... will it be in a few months or four plus years? Furthermore, the power to select federal employees alone will be very important, including the likely duty to nominate a few key justices to the Supreme Court.
On that subject, an important Supreme Court opinion was handed down yesterday concerning HMOs, though we should be a bit careful about determing why. The opinion itself was unanimous, so the result per se might not have been illegitimate (the justices themselves have had problems with this area of law, so I'm not going to try to parse it). The judgment held that a Texan law allowing patients to sue in various instances in state courts was pre-empted by federal law.
Justice Ginsburg (along with Breyer) concurred, basically pleading with Congress to clarify the law, which for years various justices have noted is confused and often led to unjust results. So, arguably, the Supremes had little choice in the matter ... the decision itself might have been sound. We should turn our focus to Congress and the President. Blaming the courts for validly interpreting laws that one disagrees with on policy grounds is often a bad, if easy, policy.
Who has put forth a more comprehensive policy to protect patients’ rights? The question is largely rhetorical, of course. The players in this lawsuit are particularly revealing ... our old friend, filibustered to death federal judge nominee Miguel Estrada, defended the insurance company. The Bush Administration put forth a brief supporting them as well. This is not surprising, though those in the know saw the hypocrisy -- Bush opposed the law when he was governor, vetoing it once, but took credit for it ("we") when he was running for President. The spin is that he does support it, really he does, but just not in this case.
Again, how you attack your opponent is important ... you can get harmed with a thousand cuts by a wily opponent, even if you are armed with a lot more firepower, if you don't know how to use it.