David Axelrod, one of Obama’s closest advisors, claims that Scott Brown’s upset victory in Massachusetts, which cost the Democrats their supermajority in the Senate, actually helped get health care reform passed. After the election, Republicans gleefully declared reform dead, since the Democrats didn’t have the votes to stop a Republican filibuster.
But instead, in the wake of the loss the GOP let down its guard, which created a breathing space for the Democrats and allowed them to regroup. And not having a supermajority forced the administration to focus.
In a separate interview, DNC chair Tim Kaine pretty much had the same opinion, saying that a lot of the hysteria that accompanied Massachusetts wasn’t rooted in reality. After all, the Democrats still had a bigger majority in the Senate than they had since 1979.
Unfortunately for the Republicans, they stayed rooted in unreality, convinced that health care reform was dead. It just goes to prove once again that the biggest mistake you can make is believing your own PR.
