Kevin Drum touched on a point today I’ve been kicking around for a long while. I’d love to get some feedback on this.
In light of John Edwards’ decision to unveil a fairly detailed health care plan, Mark Schmitt suggests it’s a bad idea — not because of the policy, but because it’s a health care plan.
[L]et me go public with the one sure thing I learned from my own miserable six months working on a presidential campaign — Do Not Put Out A Health Care Plan. Just resist. Put out some clear basic goals, some non-negotiable elements, some basic sense of the mechanisms you would favor, and some examples that show that it can be done….
[All the plans] have vulnerabilities, they all create situations in which people might have to accept change or might get less than they currently have. And the people who are most likely to vote based on health care are also people likely to be fearful of losing what they have. It will always be for political opponents to push that fear button. And when they do, the cause of universal health care is set back….
The real reason, I think, that campaigns feel the need to issue detailed policy plans is simply that that’s what we liberals do. Smart people join campaigns and they want to work on “issues.” Issues means plans, policies. No one wants to be accused of being “light on details.” But details are not important politically, they don’t help you govern, and they create terrible vulnerabilities, including reinforcing the tendency of Democratic politicians to speak in terms of policy details rather than goals and ideals.
Kevin, who seems to have a generally positive impression of Edwards’ plan, disagrees with Schmidt and suggests a campaign is a good time to hash out some of these policy details. Candidates have to fight and win despite the fear button. “Otherwise you’ll get the feel-good vote during the election but then lose later on when you try to fulfill your campaign promise and run smack into…the fear button. Best to take it on in broad daylight and wrestle it to the ground. Eventually someone will have to.”
I’m leaning in Schmitt’s direction on this one.
I’m all for substantive, policy-oriented campaigns, but I’m not sure there’s a practical (or political) upside to presenting detailed policy prescriptions, especially on a complex issue like health care, during a presidential race.
On Kevin’s side of this, candidates can claim a mandate for specific ideas if they present detailed proposals and then win. “I campaigned on this,” the newly-elected president can say, “and the people have sent me to get this done.” Except lawmakers, historically, rarely care. Presidents use the bully pulpit to raise the profile of the issue, and keep a policy matter on the front burner, but Congress is going to do what Congress is going to do. The chairman of Ways and Means Committee will yawn quite loudly when the White House complains, “But I offered the public a detailed white paper on this before the convention!” It might serve as a starting point for a congressional hearing, or maybe not even that.
As Schmitt put it:
[Y[ou will be the president, but you are not, sorry to say, The Decider, at least not on health care. To get something passed, you will have to deal with the political circumstances of that moment. Will you be able to get some Republicans on your side? Do you have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate? Will you be able to get the support of some large businesses? Will insurance companies fight any change, or are there some options they could live with? Are you able to sell the tax increase that real reform will require (and that Edwards, to his credit, was unafraid to name)? All these political circumstances will affect the shape of the actual proposal, which is why you need goals and a few non-negotiable elements, not a detailed plan.
I suppose it’s possible that there could be political ramifications for a candidate to tell voters, “Vote for me — and I’ll work out the details later.” But recent history shows otherwise. In 2000, Bush’s vague and ambiguous tax plan didn’t make any sense. Al Gore tried to make it a campaign issue, but the media ignored it and voters didn’t care. In 2004, Bush said more than once that he could revitalize Social Security without raising taxes, cutting benefits, or raising the retirement age. How did he propose to pull that off? He didn’t — he just mentioned ideas and goals without any details. There were no political consequences.
In fact, American voters don’t seem to care all that much about the details in advance. A candidate talks about what he or she finds important, and how he or she would approach the issue if elected. Voters either agree or disagree. If a candidate were to make some kind of outlandish campaign promise — free ice cream for everyone, every day, for four years — there would probably be a higher expectation to explain how that might work, but a more general policy prescription needs a lot fewer support materials.
The more I write on this, the more I’m inclined to believe candidates shouldn’t bother with detailed health care proposals. Too many negatives, too few positives. What do you guys think?