... at least from a political standpoint.
The only thing Democrats need to fear is fear itselfby Ezra Klein
To state some of the arguments of my earlier post more succinctly, the short-term danger of a Scott Brown victory is not Scott Brown in the Senate, or even 41 Republicans in the Senate. It's Democrats freaking out and abandoning the House bill. But on the merits, this is just absurd. If health-care reform was a good idea last week, it's a good idea next week -- and just as feasible.
The bill has left the Senate, can be passed by the House, and can be tweaked using the budget reconciliation process -- which is not some wild idea, given that Democrats initially considered running the whole bill through reconciliation. Nor is a Brown victory some national referendum on health-care reform: This is a special election in Massachusetts where a bad Democratic candidate has insulted Red Sox fans no less than twice. If anyone thinks Ted Kennedy would lose this election or vote to filibuster this bill, they've not said so aloud.
Finally,
Brown opposes the national health-care reform bill even as he supports the virtually-identical Massachusetts health-care reform (the main difference between the two is that the national bill is more conservative, with more cost controls). His candidacy, as Jonathan Cohn points out, is evidence that health-care reform is popular once implemented, and becomes an article of faith even among Republicans.
That's not to downplay the downside for Democrats here: It's obviously bad for a political party to lose a safe Senate seat, particularly when it will be seen as proof that they're going to get crushed in the next election. But in the short-term, the Democrats' agenda is only doomed if they choose to doom it. And Nancy Pelosi, for one, has no intention of participating in that suicide. "Let's remove all doubt, we will have health care -- one way or another," Pelosi said in San Francisco. "
just a question about how we would proceed. But it doesn't mean we won't have a health care bill."
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/01/the_only_thing_democrats_need.html 
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