The White House Thinks the Future is Cao

As we've all seen by now, the House passed the Healthcare Reform bill on Saturday night. It was a monumental achievement and has been discussed ad naseum in the blogosphere. But there is one angle that I haven't seen many reporters or bloggers discuss.

The White House pushed the only Republican to vote for it, Rep. Joseph Cao, very hard. They sweetened the deal. A lot. And I think it's a sign.

Cao said the Obama administration invested considerable time in him. He said President Obama spoke with him for "a period of a couple weeks" and that Obama's staff spoke with him "on a number of occasions."

The final pitch came Saturday around noon, when Obama called Cao and apparently offered assurances that he would help economic recovery in his district, which is mostly minority and poor. Obama got 75 percent of the votes in Cao's district in last November's presidential election.

Not only did they offer those assurances, they also pushed to have the Stupak amendment included so they could get his vote (something he said in other interviews was the only way he'd even think about voting for the bill).

They're going to do exactly the same thing to get the one thing they want in the Senate: Sen. Olympia Snowe's vote. And I'm not sure that's a good sign for the bill.

Cao was fairly easy since his district is overwhelmingly African-American and heavily Democratic. Snowe represents the entire state of Maine which, while supportive of Obama and progressive policies generally, is fairly moderate (see: Gay Marriage vote last Tuesday).

This leads me to believe that the White House is very serious about the whole bi-partisan shtick (to the point of obsession) and will do whatever they can to get her vote. If that means including a trigger, so be it. If that includes scaling back other portions of the bill to fit whatever her "conservative" mode is for that particular day, so be it. If Democrats don't like it, so be it.

This strategy is not about getting a good bill, it's intended to show political compromise and bi-partisanship on the part of the Obama administration. Instead of saying in public they'll do this without Republicans through reconciliation if they have to and then work with Republicans under the radar to get their votes (a strong negotiating position), the White House is doing the opposite. It's letting Republicans set the negotiations and the framing...and in the end, we all lose because of it.

Memo to the White House: let the bi-partisan shtick go; it won't get you any votes if the bill stinks. And once you've ditched that, grow a little backbone, will ya?