Greg Walden is doing what he can to distract and obscure, but he is in a trap of his own making.
But he will probably be OK. The media will report that he is a hypocrite and liar, but he just looks too nice for that to be true.
Greg Walden, a lifelong political conservative, comes across as a "moderate", given the ideological balance of the House GOP caucus. His tone and words are respectful. He speaks compassionately about human needs rather than angrily about cheats, layabouts, and criminals. He is "establishment" rather than "angry firebrand."
His problem is that consistently expressed his support for access to health insurance for people with pre-existing conditions. There is widespread voter suspicion of needs-based benefits because it takes from the wealthier and gives to the needier. Those that "have" believe what they have is well deserved. They made good life choices. They stayed in school. They did their homework. They worked hard and got promotions. Ronald Reagan gave voice and focus to that resentment, especially when compared with Great Society programs that appeared to many to preferentially help people of color.
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| People deserve their fortune and misfortune |
Greg Walden participates in this sensibility, that the prosperous and the secure should not have to subsidize the improvident and lazy, and thus the political opposition to Medicaid expansion. (Walden says it is a good thing, and the State of Oregon should pay for most of it.)
Pre-existing conditions are different. Good people, hard working people, deserving people, Republican people sometimes catch a bad break and have a medical condition. Sometimes a foolish Republican politician will get himself quoted saying all people with medical problems deserve them and that misfortune is a consequence of bad behavior or values, and that the healthy are correct in dismissing the unhealthy as improvident. Too much life experience argues to the contrary. He was immediately condemned by the media. That attitude simply defies observation. Sometimes bad breaks happen to good people, and Walden know it. This changes the moral paradigm, and Greg Walden understands this and bends with it. Good, deserving, hard working Republican-type people should have access to health care.
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| Trump is a genius at distraction |
But the only thing that can pass the House will significantly reduce access to healthcare for people--good Republican people with pre-exiting conditions--to access to affordable insurance, and he is in House leadership. Therefore, he is forced to vote for something which will contradict what he wants and believes necessary and that he has repeatedly assured his district that he believes. He will look weak. He will look like a hypocrite. He will be accused of lying to his district,
He has got to feel miserable about this, but he is stuck. He has a job to do.
Trump would know what to do. Trump would create a big, loud, fiery distraction. He would accuse Obama of wiretapping him or threaten North Korea with a nuclear first strike to which they would respond by threats to bomb San Francisco. That will take the public's mind off a bit of healthcare controversy. It works for Trump.
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| Walden Web Page, lead story |
Walden is too mellow for that. Walden is hiding and laying low. With the healthcare repeal and replacement the centerpiece of the news, and with his own Energy and Commerce Committee in the middle of it, he is posting about everything except that subject. Medicaid fraud is a perfect topic for him. It fits the meme that government is terrible and that needs-based programs are filled with cheaters. It fits the deserving-rich vs. undeserving poor moral standard that justifies and explains income inequality. That is an issue that "fits".
The issue that does not fit is one in which a hard working, provident, small business person has a longstanding health problem, cannot afford insurance, and then gets cancer and is bankrupted. When that happens not only is the moral system broken but it sends a signal to others that one can be prudent and hardworking ones whole life and have it all taken away from them, so why bother. The pre-existing condition problem undermines the Reagan/GOP moral argument.
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| Walden's news headlines |
Walden knows it. He is embarrassed by it. This blog uses the image of the elephant trapped in the La Brea Tar Pit frequently because it represents the peril of the apparent win, the false security of thinking one knows what one is getting into. Greg Walden was enormously successful in electing Republicans. It was his job, he was good at it, and he was rewarded for it with a Chairmanship. He attacked the ACA all across America. And because he "won" there is a Republican House that is forcing Greg Walden to be exposed as a weak hypocrite who will vote for what he has promised he opposed.
When he votes for what he opposed he will have excuses. Walden is adept. He won't admit to lying, of course. He will say he is hard at work, that the job of fixing the ACA is just started. He can say he will work tirelessly to improve the bill he just voted for and that he agrees wholeheartedly with people who say it is flawed. Walden will not present a clear opposition. He will be mushy, hard to pin down and he will essentially agree with his critics.
It is hard to disagree with people who say they agree with you.
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| Too nice a guy to lie to us |
Greg Walden will have done something hypocritical but he does not appear to be a mean spirited, dishonest, hypocritical politician. News stories will say he betrayed his own conscience and the public, which is certainly true but irrelevant and politically harmless, most likely. Walden will assert that he is continuing the fight, that the ACA was terrible (except for the provisions that are its very core, the Medicaid expansion and the provision for pre-existing conditions) and that he is continuing to work for the district to get the parts of healthcare we need and like, while opposing the parts that pay for it and make it possible.
Greg Walden's first line of politics defense is that healthcare is complicated. Few people understand it. Being mushy and inconsistent works.
More important is Walden's tone and appearance. What the public will understand is that Walden looks earnest, that he says is trying to fix things, and that he is simply too nice a guy to have done all the bad things that experts and the media and the Democrats will be saying about him.
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