With its swift boat references and invocations of critics standing for things before they were against them, the 2009 health care reform debate is sounding like the 2004 presidential campaign.
Whether either party learned the right lessons from 2004 to apply to the current health care fracas is an open question.
“We’re confident that the American people will support this legislation,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “We’re going to make sure that health care reform does not get swift-boated during the month of August.”
Since the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004 helped sink the presidential hopes of Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic Party has had no greater bugaboo.
The party blamed itself for not retaliating fast enough to the well-funded anti-Kerry organization. Swift-boating, in the meantime, has become a political shorthand for divisive, exaggerated campaign attacks.
The Democratic Party since 2004 has become more nimble and pointed in its response to outside threats. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi derided as “astroturf” the purportedly grassroots opposition to health care reform. The White House has been blaming the news media and calling out critics for distortions.
On message boards and in e-mails among Democratic supporters of health care reform, the swift boat tactics of the opposition are a recurring theme.
But another lesson from 2004 is how disciplined and focused Republicans were about getting out the vote against Kerry — a flawed candidate defeated in the end by a combination of his own shortcomings, the swift boat attacks, and the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign’s use of microtargeting and other tactics.
“Calling out swift-boating is almost like a reflex mechanism by Democrats when they have lost a grip on the public debate,” said Republican strategist Kevin Madden. “It is probably a leading indicator right now of the frustration they are experiencing with trying to regain a handle on the debate.”
Still, the swift boat metaphor in the health care debate contains a kernel of truth: Rick Scott, founder of Conservatives for Patients Rights, a group opposed to health care reform, was a key player in the 2004 swift boat campaign, and has brought the group’s public relations team back to work against health care reform.
On the other side, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin used her Facebook page to upend the health care debate by making the claim that President Barack Obama’s plan would create “death panels” to decide end-of-life issues.
Her assertion, based on a proposal to allow Medicare reimbursements for voluntary living will counseling and similar services, hijacked the debate and flummoxed the White House, which struggled to debunk the allegation.
By the end of the week, liberal groups had unearthed a 2008 proclamation from then-Gov. Palin, supporting senior access to end-of-life services including counseling on advance directives.
On MSNBC’s “Hardball,” guest host Lawrence O’Donnell on Friday declared that Palin was “for death panels before she was against them,” handing back to Republicans a line they used to undermine Kerry in 2004, over his opposition to the war in Iraq.
