The Speech

In the world of sports, game winning or changing plays go down in history in the list of the greatest plays of all time.  John Elway's "The Drive," or Joe Montana's pass to Dwight Clark in the Super Bowl aptly named "The Catch."  In sports nolstalgia, the plays that go down as significant game changers help cement the legacies of these athletes and propel them to the Hall of Fame and recognition as one of the greats of the game.

So what does this have to do with Health Care Reform?  Reform isn't directed toward helping professional athletes get insurance right?!  Is Barack Obama planning on resigning the Presidency and returning to basketball, or god forbid taking up professional bowling?

No, this isn't about athletes or our president playing alongside LeBron and Kobe in the Olympics, but it is about a certain game changer that took place this week.  Barack Obama took one more step towards a future Hall of Fame career by saving Health Care Reform, with what I would like to dub: The Speech.  Barack Obama stepped up to the plate and knocked Health Care Reform out of the park, leaving the tea-bagging and death panel pushing Republicans down and out in the bottom of the 9th inning.  

Obama's objective was to guide the Health Care Debate back down to earth, and Ezra Klein basically says that the eagle has landed.

In this speech, in fact, Obama needed to do the precise opposite of what he's best at. He needed to bring health-care reform down to earth rather than launch it into orbit. He needed to make it seem less dramatic and unknown. He needed to cast it not as change, but as improvement.

All of which he did.

We all know that Barack Obama is the Orator-in-Chief.  It is indisputable that he is already one of the greatest speakers we have ever had as President of the United States, and it's been less than a year (Also, we did just come off of eight years of George W. Bush, so anything is an improvement, right?).  But what has come into question is whether Barack Obama was in fact 'tough enough' to successfully move his legislative agenda along in Congress.  President Obama has been using a soft hand in the legislative process, allowing Congress to draft their own Stimulus Bill, Cap-and-Trade Bill, and now the Health Care Bill.  But as we all know...Congress doesn't really do their job.  At least not well.  By creating his own competing plan with Congress' five existing plans, President Obama was able to recapture the debate and move it forward in a direction that best suited him politically and is also broad enough to possible recapture those Blue Dog Democrats who are now fearful of Health Care Reform after Bloody August.  This speech took President Obama past the position of Orator-in-Chief, and even past Commander-in-Chief,  Barack Obama became the Confronter-In-Chief during The Speech.  As Jon Taplin puts it, President Obama bitch slapped the right wing Repubs, Beck, Limbaugh and the Insurance companies all in the period of a three minute section on “misinformation."  Basically, Barack Obama isn't playing anymore, and he will "call you out" if you keep lying and spreading misinformation (*cough* Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck *cough*).

But was The Speech enough?  Was it really a game changer.  As Chris Cillizza tells us, we're going to find out soon:

While the White House and the Democratic National Committee cited insta-polling that showed overwhelming majorities of the American public reacted positively to the speech, the reaction from some key Democrats in the House and Senate was more muted. The Blue Dogs released a statement after the speech saying only that they "share[d] the President's commitment to passing health care reform this year." Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, a critical swing vote in the Senate, said in a statement that he would "keep my eyes trained on the nitty gritty details as the debate moves forward." The Obama White House clearly believes that the way to pass this bill through Congress is by taking a bottom up approach -- energizing everyday Americans to pressure their lawmakers to take action. But, ultimately, a handful of Democratic Senators and Democratic House members may hold the fate of the bill in their hands.

Where I disagree with Cillizza is his insinuation that this bottom up approach won't work.  These Blue Dogs aren't appointed to their position by some governing body, they are in fact voted for by the very same people Obama has re-energized with The Speech.  And in reality, if phony town halls set up by corporate fat cats can sway Blue Dogs by posing as bottom up, then a true grassroots movement that Obama has the ability to inspire will move them right back to the President's side.  

President Obama has reopened the door for meaningful Health Care Reform.  The Speech has left Republicans out in the cold, resorting to town hall tactics in Congress (No Congressman Joe Wilson, I haven't forgotten about you.)  As President Obama said, We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it.  This is The Play of American Politics and Health Care Reform, with Obama and Democrats running over and through the Stanford Band of Republicans, including, straight towards the game winning touchdown.