Today freshmen senators Micheal Bennet (D-CO), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Jeff Merkely (D-OR) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) sent a letter to Harry Reid urging him to reintroduce the not so long ago forsaken public option to the Senate; this time through the reconciliation process that requires no supermajority to end debate, but only 51 votes to pass budget related bills.
We took the opportunity to revisit the national polling done on the public option from the fall in an attempt to divine whether or not pushing such a measure through congress with no Republican support, and possibly several Democratic votes in opposition, would be a politically astute move for the Democratic Party (on a side note, we also believe it to be the most desirable outcome in terms of progressive, and effective, health care reform legislation).
After crunching the numbers of 21 different polls, through August to mid-December (when polling of the public option effectively ceased), this is what we have:
Essentially, the trend lines for support and opposition are flat, with support for the public option coming in at a clear majority over opposition to the measure. Here it is again in a different graphic.
These are all nationwide polls, and although perhaps we will take a look at some of the internals in the future, it’s pretty obvious–the public option was by far the most universally popular of the various health care reform bills proposed. If the Democrats want to win in the fall, they have to stop backing down from popular legislation just because the Republicans do what is strategically smart for them and oppose it with all the vigor and fury and misinformation they can muster. Sure, the Tea Partiers and the uber-conservative base would never have supported the public option. But they aren’t going to vote for Democrats anyway, and the Democrats let down people who would by backing away from legislation that their potential voters liked.
And now we are facing a lack of enthusiasm crisis among left-wing voters. Hopefully reintroducing the public option will help to rectify that by giving Obama voters something tangible to rally around in support of.
