"True love for our people requires us to find common ground."

Trump delivers a presidential speech.  Pundits swoon.

Democrats can relax.  It sets Republicans up for failure.

Speech to the Joint Session

Part of Trump's brilliance in messaging is that we watch the blunt pugilist who spoke of American carnage at the inauguration and we wonder if he is capable of another tone.

Yes.   

He presented a new tone last night.  Fox's Chris Wallace, Charles Krauthammer, and Newt Gingrich and the headline writers at Breitbart are agog. Republicans have reason to cheer.  The story--and the reality--is that Donald Trump can exercise self discipline and address himself to the job of being a president.  He can guide legislation, not just be a showman.  This is a big accomplishment.   

Democrats have reason to be disappointed.  How much better for them if he had whined about the popular vote, if he had justified or minimized his relations with Russian hackers, if he had complained about women or the press or Rosie O'Donnell or Meryl Streep.  He didn't, and Democrats will need to deal with that.

Short run, it was a big win for Trump.   He is president and he was presidential.  Long run: setup to disaster.

His speech is a problem for Republicans.  It puts the responsibility on them as a party.  A dysfunctional president would have excused Republican congressional inaction.   Congressmen on the hot seats of health care or taxation or immigration legislation could blame failure on Trump, position themselves as helpless in the face of an unsuitable president, and then survived politically.    Instead, they have a president who talks a good enough game that they are expected to do what he said they would do:  the impossible.

He promised a trillion dollars worth of infrastructure that would create millions of new American jobs.   

He promised a border tax policy that will tax imports and will infuriate important and generous donors to the GOP.

He promised immigration reform that will legalize the position of a great many immigrants, an issue in the Republican base was aroused to oppose.

Worst, he outlined what he wanted in the repeal and replacement of Obamacare.   First, he trashed Obamacare, thus burning the bridges of Republicans who might want the easy-out of merely "fixing" Obamacare.   Then he repeated the four points he had posited back before he admitted that no one understood just how complicated health care was.  He said a plan must: "expand choice, increase access, lower costs and at the same time provide better health care."  (He removed his promise of "simplicity" in this speech.) He assured the country that people with pre-existing conditions would still have access to affordable insurance.  Health insurance would be available to everyone, and at a lower cost.   How would people with little or no money pay for these?  Refundable tax credits--a solution that has been considered and received the adamant opposition of the most ideologically committed portion of the Republican members, the Freedom Caucus.

Bottom line:  Trump removed the "tinker-and-call-it-good" option.   Trump put GOP Congressmen squarely on the hot seat.  Possibly they will fulfill their promises.  If they do they are sitting pretty.

Greg Walden now in National Spotlight

This effects Republican Members who are vulnerable to the charge of having failed to do their jobs.   Opposition groups are gearing up nationwide to point the finger of blame onto member who starved and broke Obamacare, then failed to fix or replace it.  There are some 30 separate Indivisible groups in just Oregon's 2nd Congressional District, the one represented by the chief Republican "attack dog" against Obamacare who is now Chairman of the key Committee charged with replacing it.   Some 3,000 people have signed up to join the Jackson County Indivisible group in just the past six weeks.   

Indivisible's local leaders say their mission is straightforward: demand that their congressman, Greg Walden, perform as he has promised.  If he does, great. If he does not, make certain the voters know it.

3,000 members in six weeks: Jackson County chapter

A great many Republican congressmen are in the same bind.  They have been generously supported by the drug industry and health insurance industry.  Those donors have interests to protect.  GOP voters have been taught to have certain expectations.  Neither donors nor base voters can be allowed to be disappointed. Trump set the expectation for the GOP: expanded choice, increased access, lower costs, simplicity, protection for people with pre-existing conditions, and better health care.  Good luck!

The current election/campaign situation causes a dilemma for GOP Members of Congress.   A congressman's strength becomes his weakness.   The old rule is to raise money, buy TV ads, and win.  Greg Walden has been extraordinarily successful in playing this game (just as had been Hillary Clinton.)  Walden has suburb support from the interest groups his committee oversees.  Voters like him.  What's the problem?

Greg Walden's Big Donors

This is a political strength, until it becomes a weakness.    Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders revealed the strength of populist outrage against bights with close connections to the big donors.  Voters understand that Pfizer's interest in high drug prices is contrary to their interest in affordable prescriptions.   Walden has support from exactly the groups that have most to lose if there were to be a replacement that remotely conforms to the expectations he--and other congressmen in similar circumstances--have raised.

A cause and effect relationship could be made visible to populist oriented voters:  Greg Walden failed to create the Obamacare replacement he promised because he--and his colleagues--are in hock to their special interest donors.  Greg Walden cannot undo what he has done.  Those contributions are in the bag.  Received.  On the record.  Populist anger will cause people to want to drain the swamp again, this time of Republicans.

Will this argument work?   Are GOP members vulnerable?  Time will tell.

Grass Roots populist campaigns are starting up unbidden

Some Members of Congress are excellent matches for their district:  the right look, the right temperament, the right political party, the right policies.   Greg Walden had been one of those Members.  But he has never had the national spotlight on him and he has never had a responsibility that is so important: to fulfill the promises that he personally made, that his fellow Republicans made, and that Donald Trump made.   

If Walden does the job well, it is universally understood that he will be re-elected and that he deserves to be. But they almost certainly promised what they can not deliver.  If Republicans fail, not only will the national press notice, there will be well organized local groups to point it out, even in--especially in--formerly safe districts.

Greg Walden is set up to be the poster boy for success.  Or failure.