How To Lose An Election

Last week, President Bush pledged to veto a bipartisan Senate bill that would cover three to four million more kids with health insurance.

Does that mean children will be left out in the cold until Bush is out of office? Not necessarily.

This week's Congressional Quarterly (sub. req'd) reports that many Republican officeholders are quite fearful at the prospect of facing the voters after denying kids health care.

“You can’t construct a question on children and health without getting an overwhelming majority in favor of giving health insurance to children,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres, who added that voting against an SCHIP expansion is “politically stupid” and could make politicians who do so appear shortsighted or stingy.

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GOP pollster Bill McInturff estimated this spring that three out of five voters “strongly favor” reauthorizing children’s health insurance, and one-quarter “somewhat favor” doing so. Republicans favored renewing the program almost as much as Democrats did, with 79 percent favoring reauthorization, compared with 88 percent of Democrats.

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“One party wanting to look more Scrooge on children’s health doesn't make a lot of sense going into a general election,” said Robert Blendon, professor of health policy and management at the Harvard School of Public Health. “If you were a political adviser, you’d be scratching your head about why this debate is going the way it is.”

In turn, leading Republicans are begging Bush to sign the bill:

[Senators Chuck] Grassley, [Orrin] Hatch and some other Republicans are urging the White House to back down from the veto threat and take the high road on a politically loaded issue. Some in the GOP, fearing political fallout in their re-election bids, have urged the administration to avoid making them take tough votes on children’s health proposals or on overriding a veto.

“To veto a bill that does so much, that implements provisions that have bipartisan support in the Senate, that has the support of many Republican governors, at this time in his presidential career is going to be a pretty big challenge,” said Lloyd Doggett of Texas, a House Ways and Means Democrat.

Bush has never cared about what the public wants, so there's little reason to expect he'll change now and sign compassionate legislation.

But the heightened concerned among some Washington Republicans, makes an unprecedented override of a Bush veto a real possibility.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future