“Bread crumbs”(perhaps how you got here)

In the days of Ancient Rome, the Romans fought a war in which the opposing general was a man named Pyrrhus of Epirus (319 – 272 BCE). He is reported to have been a brilliant general, a man who could beat the Romans. He did this, but still lost the war. From the so-called “Pyrrhic War” comes the expression “Pyrrhic Victory”, referring not just to a victory too costly to be useful but also to a victory whose success cannot be exploited.

While we all hold our breath for Sen Ben Nelson (Nebraska) to make up his mind what his price is for voting one way or the other on the Heath Care bill, some political considerations …

1. Most observers agree that if the bill does not get passed in the near future (which could perhaps lap over into January, but not much beyond that), it’s done for this session.
2. Most observers also agree that at the moment the 2010 election looks favorable for the Republicans.
3. Most observers also agree that the left wing of the Democratic Party is disgusted with the bill as it now stands and are holding their noses – if they continue to support the bill.

In other words, things look bleak for the Democrats. There may, however, be a silver lining of a perverse sort. For the Democrats, that is. One has to recall that President Obama was elected with heavy support from those that wanted health care reform.

Put that together with this: if there’s no health care bill this year, it’s highly unlikely that the insurance industry will suddenly sit up and reform itself. In other words, the health-insurance situation of most Americans will not improve. Or it might worsen.

This looks like a recipe for a Democratic come-back. The Democrats could go to the country (particularly in U S Senate races) and say, “Look, we just didn’t have quite enough solid votes; elect our guy and we’ll get the job done!” They might well still lose seats in both houses of Congress, but they might lose on the right ground, setting up a big victory in 2012.

In that scenario, two existing quasi-Democrats (Nelson and Connecticut’s Joe Lieberman) could be in some real trouble, whether the Democrats manage to do well in Senate elections or not. It’s hard to imagine that Nelson and Lieberman would make the difference between majority and minority status for the Democrats in the Senate. Suppose bad things happen for the Democrats; they lose six seats (right now it looks more likely that they’ll lose 3 to 5). In that case, there’s not a lot of difference from the majority leadership’s view between having a 54-46 majority and a 52-48 majority.

It would not be a disaster if both Nelson and Lieberman crossed the aisle.

In fact, the 52-vote majority might be a better deal, since when majorities get that thin the leadership tends to be more successful in imposing party discipline, always a problem for Democrats. One must also consider that Harry Reid is likely to lose his re-election bid in Nevada (although this is far from sure). If he loses (and maybe even if he doesn’t), the Democrats would have a new majority leader. That person might be more effective.

There is another possibility that could arise from the death of the health care bill. That would be that the Republicans would get close to a majority in each house (maybe, just maybe, even win the House); then they might try to concoct their own health care bill, maybe with some Democratic help.

Yes, that’s a remote possibility. But not zero. Stranger things have happened.

And, in general, it’s safe to say that after the 2010 elections the Democrats could very well seem weaker, yet really be stronger – they might lose seats in both houses of Congress, but, because of improved discipline, the persistence of the health care issue, and better leadership, they might be more successful.

And it’s also fairly safe to say that if the health care bill is not passed “now” (using that word with some vagueness), it probably can’t be done until sometime in 2011 at the earliest, perhaps not at all during President Obama’s first term (and perhaps his only term, a possibility that looms if the Democratic left rebels against him because of this failure and war issues).

Altogether, although the Republicans are probably drooling over their current prospects, they probably should not be too joyful. Sometimes you win a victory in politics only to discover that the winner then has to solve the problem that the vanquished couldn’t handle.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ... the real battle of 2010 (as with all decennial elections) will be in terms of control over state houses and governorships, for the next set of state governments will be determining various redistricting matters. If you’re a Democrat, give up on the 2010 election at the national level. Well, maybe that’s overstating it. But the national-level elections are not that important. Much the same things will happen at the national level regardless of who does well. But the state legislatures are a whole different matter.

Which brings us back to Pyrrhus. We know this fellow mostly from Plutarch, a good but not infallible source. We don’t really know what motivated Pyrrhus to attack Rome. Maybe it was a desire to forestall Roman power in the Greek World. Maybe it was just a desire to fight a war and have manly fun. But it seems likely that he completely failed - not long after his death, Rome really did begin the long process of taking over Greece and its dependencies, and Roman geopolitical strategy was clearly shaped in part by memories of Pyrrhus. In other words, there are victories you really, really wouldn’t want to win, especially if they cost you the war.

 All text on this page is the work of J W Durham and is licensed only under terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Other licensing terms may be available. E-mail me