MORE PLEASE: The reason he's not for a single-payer system, except on a greenfield? It's not practical. If change is going to mean something, it has to be more than just changing the guard ..
AS writes, in response to a doubting reader (maybe in the first effort of AS to actually look at Obama's policy positions as opposed to his milieu):
Three possibilities: healthcare reform, climate change, the Supreme Court.
Climate change is going to be handled by the Senate / Senators.
We have little idea who Obama would select for the Supreme Court. On the other hand, we know what Clintonesque appointments look like.
A President Obama is going to get swamped in his first year, with all the left-overs from the Bush Administration, including two 'hot' conflicts (a withdrawal is not a resolution, recall), a recession, an energy crisis (especially if withdrawal doesn't go well), pressure to close Gitmo and finish up the Bush-Cheney legal crisis, and the huge pressure to live up to his adopted mantle of delivering change.
He's not going to have the time to get up to his elbows learning about health care and managing a bill on the hill. What's more, there is little indication that he thinks it's going to be a big fight. IF he's got a game plan, we don't know it. If he gets delivered a defeat (perhaps even by his own party if he goes too far right?), won't we be reading headlines like, "Will his Presidency recover?"
Just because folks vote "not Hillary" surely doesn't mean that they are voting "for reform". Will his 'coalition of change' stay with him?
