Opposition to Health Care Reform Peaks Early, But Falls Fast -- Like Sarah Palin?

The Huffington Post reported on September 29th that the support for health care reform is again on the rise after the down slide of August. The report is based upon the newly released poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation that shows that fifty-seven percent of Americans now believe that tackling health care reform is more important than ever -- up from 53 percent in August. The proportion of Americans who think their families would be better off if health reform passes is up six percentage points (42% versus 36% in August), and the percentage who think that the country would be better off is up eight points (to 53% from 45% in August). The summer of rowdy town hall meetings, shout fests, and accusations of fascism, socialism, communism, and death panels seems to be winding down, cooling along with the fall temperatures.

In looking at these polls, it is helpful to compare them to the presidential election polls of 2008. After all, who can forget the Republican rallies of the summer of 2008? The parallels between the summer of 2008 and the summer of 2009 are unmistakable: the heated, hate-filled rowdiness, the lack of civility, the same accusations of un-Americanness, the anger, hatred, and noise, the empty rhetoric, the sheer ugliness. The list goes on and on.

The common denominator between the summer of 2008 and the summer of 2009 is Sarah Palin. When Palin enters a debate, the issue, whatever it is, becomes immediately attractive. Then things get rowdy. They get hateful. They get heated. They gain momentum. However, this momentum does not last long.

Let's look at the presidential polls from the summer of 2008 a little closer. Going into the summer, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were still in a bitter fight for the presidential nomination by the Democratic National Party. It was not until the May primaries in North Carolina and Indiana that Barack Obama started to break away from Clinton. Still, Hillary Clinton refused to concede and marched on to June primaries. The polls showed this divide among Democrats. John McCain and Barack Obama went up and down in the polls , often trading places. Only in June did Barack Obama start to pull ahead of McCain, but still within statistical error margins.

Then on August 29th, John McCain made the surprise announcement for his vice-presidential pick of Sarah Palin. On September 3rd, she delivered a 40-minute speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. She delivered the most unforgettable one liners of the whole election season: "hockey mom" and "lip stick." The numbers shot up for the McCain/Palin ticket, and all the polls bore this out. With the convention bounce and the exuberance surrounding the fresh face of Palin, McCain's favorability hovered near 50% in the Gallup Poll , reaching 48% of likely voters saying they would vote for them during the week of September 5-7 while 43% said they would vote for Obama and Biden.

Following this bounce, however, reports of the rallies started to filter through into the press. Palin's rallies were attended by those shouting profanities at Barack Obama, calling for his head. Palin herself fueled this rage by describing Barack Obama as "palling around terrorists" because he "is not a man who sees America like you and I see America." There was no question that Palin owned these one-liners and she delivered them with all the prettiness she could muster to a crazed, mostly white, crowd, fueling their repressed anger.

Then came the interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric that showed her to be awfully under-prepared for a national office. The fire of the summer died down quickly along with her credibility. The last time McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden tickets were neck and neck in the polls was during the week of September 22-24 when each ticket had 46% of votes among likely voters. The Obama/Biden ticket pulled away from the McCain/Palin ticket after that all the way until the November elections.

If one looks back at this brief history of Sarah Palin, the bounce that she gave the GOP presidential ticket, and the continued rage that was felt at the rallies she attended, a similar trend emerges also in the health care debate of the summer of 2009. The health care reform was starting to get heated when Sarah Palin entered the debate with her infamous "death panels" posted on Facebook on August 7th. She wrote:

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Then the summer of 2009 started to resemble the summer of 2008 again with Sarah Palin providing the one-liners fueling the rage and hatred at the town halls. The media was in the grip of these events unfolding during much of August following Palin's entrance into the debate. Deja vu all over again. Signs saying "Obama wants to kill your grandma" began to show up at rallies along with pictures of Obama as Hitler, the Joker, etc. Reports of shouts, profanities, uncivil behavior by mainly white town hall attendees started to fill the news outlets. The words "death panels" began to be used widely by those debating on the issue both on the right and the left, and they became the catchword for most of the GOP politicians hosting the town hall meetings.

Then again in a deja vu moment, the heat began to subside. Reports started to circulate that the majority of Americans support health care reform. The president's speech on September 9th to the Congress on health care was well-received by the general public. The so-called "Tax Payers March to Washington, DC," held a mere day days after the speech, became the target of ridicule by journalists and bloggers alike. The fact that the sheer majority of the marchers were overweight white people was not lost. Neither was the fact that most of them sounded Southern. Nor the fact that most of those interviewed didn't seem to know what they were saying, whether it was "czar," "communist," "socialist," or "fascist," or other one-liners.

The number of attendees, estimated to be about 60,000-70,000 by the DC police, but exaggerated to 1.5 million by conservative news outlets, became the subject of ridicule. The "March" was soon perceived as the coda to the cacophony of the noise that pervaded the summer rather than the beginning of a revolt of any kind. Bill Maher's blog on The Huffington Post on September 18th seemed to capture what was on a lot of Americans' minds:

Unlike most liberals, I'm glad all those teabaggers marched on Washington last week. Because judging from the photos, it's the first exercise they've gotten in years. Not counting, of course, all the Rascal scooters there, most of which aren't even for the disabled. They're just Americans who turned 60 and said, 'Screw it, I'm done walking.' These people are furious at the high cost of health care, so they blame illegals, who don't even get health care. News flash, Glenn Beck fans: the reason health care is so expensive is because you're all so unhealthy.

So here we come to the final observation. When looking at the summer of 2008 and the summer of 2009 together, we find that the GOP and the GOP driven agenda quickly found flame with the entrance of Sarah Palin who brings attractiveness to the table. They shoot up in popularity for a few weeks, driven by one-liners from Palin, delivered by her as loudly as possible. However, once the novelty of these one-liners wear off, the noise clears, the dust settles, and the plain fact of the vapidness of these one-liners become apparent. The polls slide. After all, arguments without substance do not hold for long whether they are delivered by pretty faces or by an angry crowd.

It seems that Sarah Palin is trying to fan the flame again with the early release date of her book, Going Rogue. It remains to be seen what kind of effect her book will have. If the lesson of the last two summers is any indication, without substance, Sarah Palin will fade away quickly. She will once again be remembered only for the one-liners and for the smirk with which she delivered those one-liners.

One thing is certain. If you rise too fast, if you peak too early, then you fall just as hard. It is a lesson that the GOP needs to learn in order to stay relevant for the majority of Americans who consider themselves to be in the center. We are all in this together for the long haul. Not for the short-lived flames.

Comments

[Rual Reynolds]

What happens if and when they take 3 to 5 billion out medicare and give it to the people not insured. means that one of the appointe Csars will determine by COMMITTEE NOT PANEL who is going to get the help needed. IAM ALSO CERTAIN THAT DOCTOR ZEKE EMANUAL will be in charage,after all he did say and write that one teenager is worth a lot more than a senior cirtizen. lets be fair and not one sided.

[gettingitright]

Very good point. The situations do parallel.

[ECBA88]

This is exactly why I've been saying it's good to spend this much time on health care reform.

On another note, I hope to see Palin in the Republican primaries in 2012, it will screw with the more reasonable candidates and do one of two things. Either the pitbull with lipstick gets the nomination and cannot hold onto enough credibility for people outside the 25% Republican base that loves her to see her as a potential president, or she doesn't, and we get a Republican who none of the rabid fringe voted for in the primaries. Their enthusiasm peters out and many of them stay home in the general election.

[QuiteSeriously]

Great reminder of the ebb and flow of events. To predict the outcome, watch for shifts of momentum. It does seem the debate is shifting now in favor of reform including a solid public option. I support the public option, funded by premiums, available to those who want it. The size of the public option will always depend on how many people want it for themselves, so it is the opposite of the government deciding for us. We get to choose. Sweet.

[wolfsvssarah]

Sarah who?

[coltraning]

Not a bad post, but stretching it a little to a lot. The McCain campaign imploded AFTER he "suspended" his campaign in a stunt that even George W thought was dumb. As for all the awful hateful comments at the rallies, those kind of comments started later, more around October 15 after the VP debate, when McCain lost any remaining shred of dignity and allowed Richard Nixon with great hair, lips and legs to go rogue on Obama, and the ugly crowds of pretty much exclusively older rural white men and women festered. Of course that hurt. I believe that Palin probably cost McCain as many points as Obama's race and name cost him, so it evened out.

[wolfsvssarah]

well not really, since Obama won, and he won with a very respectable percentage of votes. Palin was and is and will probably always be a joke. I even felt a little sorry for McCain, all he was doing was putting out the fires she set. She was the worst person in the world he could have chosen.

[pammiethekid]

We are very lucky he chose her. It showed his lack of spine under pressure, not to mention judgement, so that any independent with more than two brain cells to click together understood the risk they would take in voting him in.

[pontesisto]

If you would like to help pressure Congress to pass single payer health care please join our voting bloc at:
http://www.votingbloc.org/Health_Bloc.php

[justobserve]

It was amazing that Palin's Death panels" was not called out for its idiocracy while millions of peple, under-insured or un-insured are dying or died everyday due to the current Death panel, the private insurers, who denied people the insurance when they needed it or delayed the treatment recommended by doctors when they need it urgently. Just as the lies of "long waiting line in government-run" system, how can we let these lies flied without facts? Palin's fast rise when McCain picked her was that people gave her the benefit of the doubt that because she was a Governor, she wouldn't be so bad. She fell down to earth after people found down, thanks to investigative journalism, that her rise in Alaska was tdue to in the wild Alaska she needed to hookwink only a couples of hundred thousands votes to win. The people who supported her are loudmouths but they are just a small number that even though she is still on the scene, her number is not enough to sustain a place on the serious national scene. People everywhere will be fascinated with her rise but once they heard her talk, they would soon realize what an empty-headed beauty she is. I am sure she will be spectacularly successful if she goes into entertainment arena.

[SimonSezz]

She WAS beautiful.­..........­....I'm not holding that against her it's just fact

[dontomas]

Every day the street I see a lot of beautiful women and for the most part it is women who do not strut or beam or wink. The beauty I see was not on display, more of an aura of beauty rather than a this beaming photo op image of Palin. I never thought she was beautiful, even before I got to know what she was all about.

[Yuna Shin - Huffpost Blogger]

I certainly think that is part of our fascination with her. She is beautiful. However, she may be beautiful on the outside, but she certainly was not beautiful on the inside at least during the election. She seemed to bring the worst out of people, and wherever she went, anger and hatred were palpable. She lent a pretty face to anger and hatred, made them attractive. Kathleen Parker made this point as did Maureen Dowd.

[liviapeacock]

I would like to know what the resistance to health care reform is exactly about. Currently, health care is is controlled by big business. Democrats want to give them competition and keep them in line. Medicare works well. People love it, even my Righter than Right-wing parents love their Medicare. Medicaid works well. Problem? Not enough people have access to these excellent and efficient public options. Is there waste? Sure, but there is waste everywhere; government doesn't have a monopoly on that. Any where you have a bureaucratic system, whether its a government bureaucracy or an insurance industry bureaucracy there will be waste. at least with a government bureaucracy, you have power on every election day. What kind of power do you have with your insurance company? ZERO.

I get tired of the "my taxes are too high" cry. I am in the top 2% of income earners in the U.S. Guess what? My taxes actually are high and I didn't get the Obama tax cut. I happily pay my fair share it helps other who are not as lucky as I was to be born with intelligence, drive and good sense. Some people actually do need a little help, especially if they have children. I am happy to help where help is needed if it means the citizens of my country are generally well cared for.

Its called civilization. Its the right thing to do.

[SpikeC]

More power to you!

[Yuna Shin - Huffpost Blogger]

That is certainly true. Most of the opposition to health care reform of the summer had really nothing to do with health care. It is my opinion that it had everything to do with the general discontent, mainly among those that lost the election that brought the first non-white president in the White House. Health care is something that touched every single American, young and old, black and white, male and female. It does require our utmost attention, and we have the task of informing ourselves so that we may implement something that is truly worthy of this nation. Having said that, it is also my belief that the heat died down because precisely it had nothing to do with health care. After all the dust settled, we still had the same problem of having to do something about it. I think it is time for us to all sit down and think this through.

[Imago]

Nice article.

I think that the administration knew that this was going to erupt this summer and stepped back to let it play out so an actual conversation could begin this fall.

I also agree with you that the hysteria this summer wasn't about health care, but instead was about a group of people who are desperately afraid that they are no longer relevant (or that they never were) who were expertly stroked into believing that their way of life is ending and that health care was going to be the proverbial (and perhaps literal) nail in its coffin.

There's just enough truth to how the world is changing that those fears are ready to be stoked. If, for example, someone identifies themselves in terms of race and they are looking for signs that people with their identify have power, if one is white, those signs are shifting. As you suggested, we have the first person of color as president. In SoCal, where I live, whites are no longer the majority, etc.

So when you're a cynical power monger, you fan these fears and you've got an easily-manipulated army who will work themselves into abject hysteria over anything you tell them is an attack on who they are. Scary stuff.

But, the good news is that this stuff does ebb and flow (it's the good news about the fear-mongers -- that kind of fear and hate is hard to maintain long term, as it take so much energy) --

[sski74]

Very well said.

[HuffyAmy]

It wasn't just the loss of the election, though, it was also anger about the wall street meltdown and the fact that ordinary Americans had to bail out wall street millionaires who thought it was fun to gamble with money they never had, and to rely on a bailout from our government. The fact that the blame for this was allofasudden being placed on Obama was absurd, when he had been in office for a matter of months and the recession and wall street failures began months even before the election, but that discontent/anger factored into the protests as well. Just sayin'.

I hope you're right about the repeated Sarah Palin flameouts. I'd like to see her go away for good, much as I love the jokes.

[PlaceboStudman]

Opposition to Health Care Reform that has nothing to do with Health Care may have peaked early and may be falling fast, but, like Sarah Palin, it will never go away. Nor should it. Even if those of us who oppose this round of reform lose this round, there will always be more rounds in the future for other generations to tackle, and they will likely come up against the same opposition we are. But, if we do not try to oppose reform because we believe it was done poorly or thoughtlessly, then we will never know if we were right if our ideas ever are implemented