By RICK KLEIN
Fired up? Check. Ready to go? We’ll get back to you on that one.
One party is in solid control. The other is spinning out of control.
The first party has a popular messenger. The second party is losing popular messengers at a rate of one a week.
That first party is trying to remake a health care system that nobody really loves. Sound like a fair fight?
Why is this so hard again? Wednesday night’s health care conversation on ABC gave some clues: This is complicated stuff, where not everybody’s going to be happy.
And it’s easier to diagnose problems than prescribe solutions.
“President Obama struggled to explain today whether his health care reform proposals would force normal Americans to make sacrifices that wealthier, more powerful people — like the president himself — wouldn’t face,” ABC’s Jake Tapper and Karen Travers write in their summary of the health care forum.
A campaign slogan, for another campaign: “What’s lacking is political will, and that’s what I’m hoping the American people provide, because genuine change generally does not come from Washington,” the president told ABC’s Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer. “And I think this is that moment.”
And the thing that may make the moment work best is that the other side keeps trying to tear itself down, even while it tries to build itself up. (Somehow, each deconstruction effort discovers a new floor).
Gov. Mark Sanford’s, R-S.C., self-immolation would be a shocker by itself. But with some context, those tears were not his alone.
“For a Republican Party down on its luck, the governor’s disappearance and subsequent rambling apology to his wife, his family, his close friends and all the people of South Carolina draw more unwelcome publicity to a party that needs but cannot seem to get any good news,” Dan Balz writes in The Washington Post. “They will need missteps by the president and more success in finding a credible message. But when every small step forward is matched by a setback juicy enough to dominate the cable-news culture of today’s politics, it’s no wonder Republicans continue to have such long faces.”
An official media trend: “The personal travails on display during Mr. Sanford’s awkward news conference became the latest symbol of the struggles vexing his Republican Party, as another of its rising stars was upended by a sexual indiscretion,” Jonathan Weisman and Susan Davis write in The Wall Street Journal. “Mr. Sanford’s confession comes as the party is starting to gain some traction in battling Democrats, focusing on the still-weak economy and raising fears among voters about big budget deficits and an overly intrusive federal government.”
“Extramarital affairs, gambling, alcohol abuse, prostitution and sexual pursuit of minors have taken a toll on the GOP,” S.A. Miller writes in the Washington Times.
“That series of problems has become so chronic that even the party’s most pragmatic members could be forgiven for wondering whether being named ‘possible 2012 contender’ is like winning the movie role of Superman,” Jim Rutenberg writes in The New York Times.
Former Bush Press Secretary Dana Perino, writing for National Review: “It’s like the stuff of Danielle Steele novels has turned into reality. Next fall’s TV season can feature a new show: ‘I’m a Politician’s Wife — Get Me Out of Here!’ ”
“No excuses,” Michelle Malkin blogs. “If you can’t honor your marriage vows, how can you expect voters to trust you to honor your damned oath of office?”
“I’m very disappointed,” said Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., per McClatchy’s James Rosen.
“I think I represent to him people who believed in him, believed in the power of his ideas,” state Sen. Tom Davis, R-S.C., Sanford’s former chief of staff, told ABC’s Robin Roberts on “Good Morning America” Thursday. “Actions do have consequences, and it hurts people.”
“He shouldn’t resign. I think that South Carolinians specifically, Americans in general have a great capacity for forgiveness. Now, that said, they can also recognize hypocrisy. . . . The tale of the tape will be the next few days, whether or not Gov. Sanford is sincere in his repentance.”
The State has e-mails between Gov. Sanford and “Maria” that provide just enough spice to season yet another scandal for a few more days of cable chatter, as talk of impeachment brews in Columbia. (“I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself . . . ” )
The immediate future: “Mark Sanford gets his own chapter in the scandal management playbook with that raw and rambling performance today. Will it work?” asks ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “While no top South Carolina Republican has yet called for Sanford’s resignation, former GOP Chair Katon Dawson says they will come.”
“We don’t really know how this is going to go now,” Stephanopoulos said on “GMA.” “Democrats have had a harder time holding onto office after these scandals recently than Republicans.”
“The calls for the governor’s resignation from across the state are now growing,” ABC’s Steve Osunsami reported on “GMA.”
Might it be Obama’s big issue that offers a path back for the GOP?
“While still good, President Barack Obama’s political health is deteriorating, threatened by what he thought would be balm — his ambitious plan for a government takeover of health care,” Karl Rove writes in his Wall Street Journal column. “Americans are increasingly concerned about the cost — in money and personal freedom — of Mr. Obama’s nanny-state initiatives. . . . Health care may actually be an issue that helps resurrect the GOP.”
Hmm — have Republicans ever gotten anywhere on this tax issue in the past?
“With lawmakers trying to crunch the numbers on a $1 trillion health care overhaul, President Barack Obama is leaving the door open to a new tax on employer-provided health care benefits,” the AP’s Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar writes.
“There is going to have to be some compromise,” Obama said.
He may not have a choice: “It is hard for me to see how you have a package that is paid for that doesn’t include reducing the tax subsidy for health care,” said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., per ABC’s Z. Byron Wolf.
The left knows how to press, too: “If reform legislation comes to the floor, and it does not include a real and robust public option that lives up to our criteria, then we will fight it with everything that we have,” Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., tells Roll Call’s Steven T. Dennis.
“I think leaving it to the private health insurance companies that continue to rip off the American people will not bring down costs and will not be successful,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said on ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” Wednesday.
Some GOP response, post-forum: “I think there probably will be health care reform — unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a bipartisan health care reform,” Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told Diane Sawyer on “GMA” Thursday. “I think they’re going to be pushing their version of reform through, and they probably will get it through by the end of the year.”
A still-unanswered question (one that really stokes public concern): “Senators struggled Wednesday with the possibility that in offering subsidized health insurance to millions of individuals and families, they could inadvertently speed the erosion of employer-provided coverage, which they want to preserve,” Robert Pear and Jeff Zeleny report in The New York Times.
Rally time: 11:30 am ET at Upper Senate Park, with actress Edie Falco, former Gov. Howard Dean, AFSCME President Jerry McEntee, and a few thousand of their closest friends.
Coming up on “This Week” Sunday: Senior White House adviser David Axelrod is George Stephanopoulos’ guest.
A bigger profile coming for First Lady Michelle Obama? “For weeks, Michelle Obama had been telling her staff and closest confidantes that she wasn’t having the impact she wanted,” Lois Romano reports in The Washington Post. “So, earlier this month, she changed her chief of staff, and now she’s changing her role.”
“She is hiring a full-time speechwriter and has instructed her staff to think ‘strategically’ so that every event has a purpose and a message. She doesn’t want to simply go to events and hug struggling military families, she said; she wants to show progress,” Romano writes.
Cap-and-trade — on the move.
“President Obama on Wednesday defended his assertion that a climate-change measure making its way through Congress would greatly reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, even as government figures raised questions about whether he was overstating its effect,” Paul West writes in the Los Angeles Times. “Obama has intensified his lobbying effort ahead of an expected House vote Friday on a Democratic energy proposal designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sharply by 2050.”
Former Vice President Al Gore hits the Hill with key House committee chairman Thursday afternoon, to tout the Markey-Waxman bill.
In the other corner, Warren Buffett: “Buffett, the chairman and chief executive officer of Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc., took to the airwaves yesterday to call the legislation ‘regressive,’ ” per Bloomberg’s Lorraine Woellert and Simon Lomax.
Speaking of flashy props, it’s chart time for the House GOP: In advance of the House vote on Friday, Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, is unveiling a chart at his 11:45 am ET news conference that highlights how the “cap-and-trade national energy tax is a bureaucratic nightmare,” per an aide. “This chart will bolster our case further by highlighting how this bill will become a massive bureaucratic and government nightmare. Let me know if you have any questions.” See the new chart HERE.
Framing the opposition: “As part of the far-reaching climate bill, the House is set to vote Friday on a plan to pay companies billions of dollars not to chop down trees around the world, as a way to reduce global warming,” Amanda DeBard writes in the Washington Times.
The cost’s the thing: “Three-quarters of Americans think the federal government should regulate the release into the atmosphere of greenhouse gases from power plants, cars and factories to reduce global warming, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, with substantial majority support from Democrats, Republicans and independents,” the Post’s Steven Mufson and Jennifer Agiesta report. “But fewer Americans — 52 percent — support a cap-and-trade approach to limiting greenhouse gas emissions similar to the one the House may vote on as early as tomorrow. That is slightly less support than cap and trade enjoyed in a late July 2008 poll. Forty-two percent of those surveyed this month oppose such a program.”
Remember what it was to be BTU’d? “Democrats seem to have struck a deal on a massive energy and global warming bill, but some in the party are worried their politically risky vote in favor of the measure will be for nothing because once it hits the Senate, where opposition from every Republican and many centrist Democrats make passage, or even consideration, unlikely,” Susan Ferrechio writes for the Washington Examiner.
Growing toward this point: “There is a growing sense among Democrats that they will not be able to accomplish the entire agenda leaders set for 2009, pushing major policy debates into the midterm election year,” The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports.
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.: “There is a risk of not doing anything by trying to do too much.”
Add one more (an easy one, right?): “President Barack Obama will meet Thursday with a bipartisan, politically diverse group of lawmakers to begin discussing a rewrite of U.S. immigration laws,” The Wall Street Journal’s Jonathan Weisman writes. “[Sen. Chuck] Schumer, who took over from Mr. Kennedy this year as chairman of the Senate’s immigration subcommittee, said he believes an immigration bill can get done this year, though he admitted he is a lonely voice in Washington.”
Happy birthday, Judge Sonia Sotomayor: “Senate Republicans on Wednesday questioned whether Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor would uphold certain constitutional rights, but insisted they were only raising issues, not attacking her,” Marjorie Korn reports in The Dallas Morning News. “Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a Judiciary Committee member, said her past decisions may indicate she believes the right to bear arms applies only to the federal government.”
Look for Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to have his roughest ride yet on the Hill Thursday: “Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke likely will face hostile questions from a House committee investigating whether he and other government officials pressured Bank of America Corp. into a ‘shotgun wedding’ with Merrill Lynch that cost taxpayers $20 billion,” per the AP’s Jeannine Aversa.
Also on the Hill Thursday: Reps. Darrell Issa, Joe Barton, and James Sensenbrenner hold an afternoon news conference to highlight EPA documents from the early days of the Obama administration. Per an aide: “We’ve learned that important comments from an EPA analyst with 35 years experience were kept out of the proceeding by an Agency official, not because of scientific merit, but according to the official, because ‘the administration [had] decided to move forward on endangerment,’ and the ‘comments [did] not help the legal or policy case for this decision.’ ”
Byline: Bill Clinton, in the new Time, on FDR: “I was often criticized, just as President Obama is now, for trying to do too many things at once. Roosevelt understood that in a complex and perilous situation, you have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, and he was masterly in doing a variety of difficult things simultaneously. . . . I thought of both Roosevelts when I told Americans that we needed a new social contract for the 21st century, one that would keep us moving toward a ‘more perfect union’ in a highly interdependent, complex, ever changing world.”
“That is the challenge Obama has inherited,” Clinton continues. “I believe he will succeed in his efforts at economic recovery, health-care reform and taking big steps on climate change. Along the way, I hope he will be inspired by F.D.R.’s concern for all Americans, his relentless optimism, his penchant for experimentation, his relish for spirited debate among brilliant advisers and his unshakable faith in the promise of America.”
The Kicker:
“I don’t know how this thing got blown out of proportion.” — Gov. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., a few hours before that thing got blow into another media stratosphere.
“I think instead it shows that sexual attractiveness of limited-government conservatism.” — Grover Norquist, making conservatism sexy again.
Today on “Top Line,” ABCNews.com’s daily political Webcast: Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.; White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton. Noon ET. http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=6105692
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