Ask any general or high-ranking military officer, and they'll tell you that the best morale builder is victory, and the biggest morale destroyer is failure. It doesn't seem open to question that the right is, at the moment, more energized than the left on the healthcare issue. Morale is high, they feel that they're making an impact, changing peoples' minds, driving the debate, etc. They feel as though they're heading toward victory on this issue.
Only they're not. Sure, they've made CNN's poll show a drop in support of the President's proposal--of one percent. That's right, over the past month, with all the histronics, this is all they've accomplished. But Democrats are feeling queasy and remembering failed legislative battles past, two Democratic governorships up this year are in trouble, and the right seems to be marching forward.
I really think this strategy of dispatching mobs to break up town halls is going to backfire in a big way. Despite the Republican spin of how these are just typical, middle-class voters, it has historically been difficult to present shrieking mobs as the sensible center. I think that Steve Benen's account of two of these town halls is worth reading for some more perspective on the topic. If it makes people more hostile toward anti-reform forces, and convinces congresspeople that the main opponents of reform are literally nuts, I don't see how this helps Republicans at all. There are, of course, plenty of constructive ways the right could contribute to the debate--I think the employer mandate is misguided, for example--but it sets up the sort of reform vs. status quo conflict that the Administration has always wanted for this issue, and it gives Democrats lots of good opportunities to remind people of the nutter wing of the GOP. It is, in short, the best present the right could ever have given the left.
Right now the right is energized and the left is less so. But if healthcare passes, the tables will be turned because of the nature of victory as a morale-builder. And I do think it will pass. Making this into a partisan battle was perhaps inevitable, but since the Democrats hold most seats in both chambers, failing to pass a bill will be a much bigger disaster for the Democrats, no less so because it would embolden the Republicans agitating against it. My guess is that these protest tactics will not only harden Democrats' resolve to pass some significant reform, but they will also harden public opinion in favor of it. And my guess is that those two gubernatorial races won't be quite the blowouts that the GOP hopes they will be, with a newly-demoralized base to motivate.
