The enthusiasm with which some left-of-center bloggers are arguing that passing health reform has substantial political benefits puzzles me. I'll state at the outset that none of this post has anything to do with the policy benefit. I leave the policy for people who at least can pretend like they know what they're talking about, and I don't have strong feelings on the bill on the merits. But I can barely see a good faith basis for most of the arguments regarding the political benefits.

Look what happened in 1994! It's true that in 1994 the Democrats didn't pass health care reform, and they lost the House. But it doesn't follow that if they had passed health care, they'd have held the House, or even limited their losses. As I noted last summer, Representatives in tough districts who supported controversial Clinton initiatives lost ground versus those who did not support those initiatives. There isn't any reason to believe that the health care bill would be any different.

Look at it this way: Imagine the next time Republicans get total control of the government (yes, it will happen someday). Now imagine that they decided to press ahead with privatizing social security. Now imagine that support for the bill falls below 40%, and the GOP loses a Senate seat in Idaho to an obscure candidate. What would your reaction be to someone who argued that the GOP needed to pass it because, after all, they had failed in 2005, and lost control of the government?

People will love it once it is passed Now I think a 1994 analogy is apt. In 1994, gun owners didn't suddenly realize that the Assault Weapons Ban would not result in Janet Reno taking away their hunting rifle. Nor did middle-income taxpayers realize that the Clinton budget didn't raise their taxes. In the long run, this is probably a winner for Democrats (assuming it works as well as planned), but in the short run – probably for the next 1-5 years, it will be a millstone for red state Democrats.

To be sure, there are lots of popular things that come into law right away for Democrats to campaign on. But do you really think that, in the face of advertisements claiming that Blanche Lincoln voted for tax hikes, Medicare cuts, and “death panels,” that voters are going to say “well, at least I get to keep my kid on my insurance policy until he is 26”?

Finally, what more can Democrats do? They've been trying to explain this bill furiously for months. Obama's given a prime-time speech. The bill's popularity continued to collapse. I'm sorry, but I'm just not certain what Democrats can do to turn public opinion around on this bill in the next ten months.

They'll come after you anyway This is true, at least for those who supported the bill the first time around. But if I'm a Republican given a choice between an ad saying “he voted for a tax hike that didn't pass” versus “he voted for a tax hike that passed,” I'll take the former every day. Actually passing the tax hike makes it more tangible, and writes it into law. I really don't see any argument why people wouldn't see the latter as more tangible, and react more strongly.

We have to show we can govern. This is easy to answer. Yes, you have to show you can govern. But you also have to show you can govern well. Republicans passed all kinds of laws between 2001 and 2006, often using this maxim as a justification. When people decided they didn't like the style of governance, it didn't matter that Republicans were actually “governing.”

Be a statesman. Okay, I guess this one has something to do with the policy merits. The argument here is that, since this is a good, important bill, Democrats should take it on the chin and pass it anyway. Both Parties make this argument from time-to-time; Republicans most recently with regard to the troop surge.

But the bottom line is that we are a “representative democracy.” Which word you choose to emphasize probably depends on whether you want a bill to pass or not, but at the end of the day our institutions have legitimacy only insofar as they are tied to the will of the people. And there's little doubt that the Democrats, for better or for worse, have lost the public on this bill, and that they have done so badly .

We very rarely pass major legislation in this country where the public is so viscerally opposed. When we do, there's almost always a backlash. And have no doubt: If the Democrats go ahead and pass this bill, the backlash will be much worse than if they don't pass it.

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