A pair of good opinion pieces in the Washington post today about Healthcare Reform.  The first from Dana Milbank:

Liberals are turning against President Obama with an energy that until now has been reserved for Fox News viewers who wear tri-corner hats and wave yellow "Don't Tread on Me" flags:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in a news conference Wednesday, declares that she won't ask House members to support Obama's Afghanistan troop increase in a January vote. "The president's going to have to make his case," she says, calling it a "vote of conscience."

I spoke the other day about this.  Obama's constantly shifting position on healthcare reform has led to Speaker Pelosi, now being unwilling to stick her neck out for Obama, lest Obama decide that he is okay with something different tomorrow.

The other comes from Matthew Dowd:

I am not seeking to argue the substance of health care and the merits or demerits of the bills, and will leave that to experts in policy and its effects. I am talking about the politics of the legislation and the effect it is likely to have on Obama and Democrats in Congress.

Unlike many other pundits and political experts in both parties, I think that passage of a bill by the Democrats at this point will be politically damaging to both the president and congressional Democrats. Conversely, defeat of the legislation is much more likely to hurt Republicans in Congress...

..   Many Democrats, including people in the administration, blame poor marketing for their difficulties in passing health reform. They say they haven't gotten the message out. But advocates of reform have spent millions on advertising and lobbying this year. And Obama, who many say is the best orator ever to occupy the White House, has pushed for this legislation constantly over the past six months. In that time, support for Obama's handling of health-care reform has dropped by more than a net of 30 points.

Yet before Republicans cheer that they may defeat this effort, they should beware what they wish for. A vast majority of Americans still believes that we need fundamental health-care reform. If the legislation fails, Democrats can blame Republicans by saying reform was in sight and the GOP blocked it without offering a real alternative to decrease costs and increase access.

The analysis of this comes down to the same problem.  Obama has been out and about talking about healthcare reform but he hasn't done so in a means of advocating a specific solution to a specific problem, rather instead he has been advocating a general solution of healthcare reform.   

This is a failure of sales.  Good sales pitches will identify a problem, offer up a solution and make the case to the customer about how the solution I have will meet your needs.   Think of spark plugs for your car.  If a company that sells spark plugs runs an advertisement, telling you all of the benefits of changing your spark plugs in your car but doesn't include a mention of why the specific spark plugs they are selling will meet your specific needs hopefully better than the competitor then the customer has no incentive to go out and purchase their spark plugs over those of the competitor.  You've sent them the message that any spark plugs will do.

This is Obama's sales pitch in essence.

Now this leads us to two other ideas.  First, Barack Obama does not see himself as being the head of the Democratic Party, and it is time the Democrats stopped treating him as such.  Obama wants to be the President of all of the people, which is fine and a notable goal, but as a Democrat one would think he would be a foreceful advocate for explaining to the American people how Democratic principles are best for America.  Listen to others and compromise when necessary sure, but don't be afraid to explain why you're for what positions you are for and why you disagree with the opposition.   Why did we know more two years ago about where Obama stood on healthcare reform than we do today?

The second thing is that Democrats want this too much.  In order to be effective in negotiation your negotiating partner needs to understand that there is a legitimate chance that you will walk away from the table if you're not happy with the negotiations.  Democrats are in that position now, and this is why Joe Lieberman has been able to bend the party over the barrel.  There came a point back in August when Max Baucus should have walked away from negotiations with the Republicans when it became obvious they were not negotiating in good faith, and Democrats should have closed ranks.  There came a point in the past couple of weeks when Democrats could and should have walked away from negotiations with Lieberman and left him holding the bag for healthcare reform.  They didn't do it.

So what is the path going forward?  I don't know.  I suspect that those who say that Democrats simply at this point need to salvage anything they can from the process and declare victory are right.  Though I can't say that I disagree with those who say it might be best to still at this point walk away from negotiations and start again fresh.  Though I hope if they do that they have the forward thinking enough to capture the Republicans cheering when it happens for use in future campaign ads.