Dan

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July 27, 2009

Health Care Collapsing Because Obama Doesn’t Know How to Govern

Democrats are starting to discover what Republicans should keep in mind the next time they get about the business of nominating a candidate for president: Ideology and electability, while important, are overrated – and governing ability is vastly underrated.

President Obama’s collapsing health care initiative is Exhibit A. The left loved Obama during last year’s primary campaign, far more than it loved establishment pick Hillary Clinton, because Obama was an appealing, pure ideological liberal. Surely, this was a guy who would have no hesitation getting behind a whole host of left-wing policies.

A government takeover of health care has long been at the top of that list, and sure enough, Obama jumped right in with a monstrosity of a bill. He insisted the Democratic-controlled Congress pass it before its August recess, and with huge majorities in both chambers, including a filibuster-proof one in the Senate, the left’s fondest dream finally appeared inevitable.

Now we know there will be no vote on health care until at least the fall, and given the direction of public opinion and the nervousness of Democrats on Capitol Hill, it’s at best an even bet that anything at all passes. Worse for Obama, if it doesn’t happen this year, it will likely never happen, as Democrats are not going to get behind a socialized medicine bill in a mid-term election year and risk the kind of Republican tidal wave that swept so many of them out of office in 1994.

Obama is at serious risk of seeing health care “reform” collapse entirely. So how has he managed to put himself at risk of such a monumental failure when all the numbers seemed to favor his success?

Because he doesn’t know how to govern.

This was easy for his supporters to ignore during the campaign, especially when Democrats have traditionally had such a hard time winning the White House, and Obama was clearly on a path to victory. Any time someone brought up his complete lack of executive decision-making experience, it was argued that he would simply surround himself with good people and he would have no problem.

As my colleague Herman Cain pointed out in a recent column, Obama has certainly surrounded himself with a lot of people – 69 of them reporting directly to him. Herman, an experienced CEO, pointed out to me when discussing that column that the ideal number of people to report to a CEO even in a big organization is considered to be seven by those who study management. The absolute highest number is 15, and that’s for a very experienced CEO whose management team is completely free of hidden agendas and paranoia. That’s almost impossible to find, even in the private sector, let alone in government.

So a chief executive with no experience whatsoever, dealing with 69 direct reports, is a guaranteed disaster – even before you mix in the bad policy ideas.

Obama is also failing to govern effectively because he is approaching policy initiatives with legacy in mind, rather than serious problem-solving that really brings improvement. Left-wingers desperately want the government to run health care, and they learned in 1994 that, even in the event one of them becomes president with a Democratic majority in Congress, there is a very short window of opportunity to do this.

So even though the economy is horrible and federal spending is already out of control, Obama wanted more than anything else to be the president who finally got it done – knowing this would make him a left-wing icon on the order of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That’s why he tried to cram the bill into a very tight calendar. That’s why he abdicated leadership and let the worst of the Capitol Hill Democrats write the bill. That’s why he failed to think it through and couldn’t keep Blue Dog Democrats on board.

Governing is a skill entirely apart from ideological purity or electability. Just because a candidate stands for the things you stand for doesn’t mean he can actually get them done. You have to know how to craft policy, know how shepherd it through Congress, know how to align your policy prescriptions with the needs of the public, anticipate unintended consequences and have a strategy for dealing with them.

You also have to know how to lead and direct your executive team so it stands ready not only to get your plan through Congress, but also how to execute it once it becomes law.

Obama doesn’t know how to do any of this. He does not know how to govern. This will come as good news to conservatives, who now see the worst of his policy ideas going down in flames. But it should also serve as a cautionary tale. If the next Republican nominee is a “true conservative” who supports all the things conservatives want, but doesn’t possess the skill to govern effectively, conservatives will be left feeling as hollow and frustrated as liberals feel right now.

You can stand for anything. It’s not worth a bucket of warm spit if you can’t actually get it done.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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