Here we are into the last week of July, with a congressional recess due to start in the next ten days, and the Democratic party is badly split over details on the health care legislation that President Obama is promoting as the major program of his first year in office.
The "Blue Dog" Democrats, who are in many ways ideologically similar to many Republicans, and many of whom come from the South and Appalachia, the GOP strongholds, are resisting a public plan which most liberal and many moderate Democrats want. In the Senate, there is also opposition from a small group of moderate Democrats, again heavily from the South and Great Plains, where only a small portion of the American population resides.
This is all very frustrating, and only serves to encourage and excite the Republican party, which is totally opposed except for a couple of senators. Conservative Jim DeMint of South Carolina has said he wants to promote the rejection of the legislation as a means to destroy the Obama Presidency, and says this legislation, if defeated, would be the President’s "Waterloo".  GOP National Chairman Michael Steele has emerged again as totally combative, and at the same time, unrelenting in his negativism toward dealing with the health care issue in any form. Conservative ideologist Bill Kristol of THE WEEKLY STANDARD has called for total defeat of any legislation regarding health care.
The hope is that the Democrats, during the recess, with the activities of President Obama and others, and a large scale advertising campaign, can make a case for the necessity of a comprehensive national health care plan. The fear is that IF it is prevented from being enacted, then the GOP could use it, along with the slow economic recovery that was obvious from the beginning of the economic crisis, as a tool to shoot for regaining control of Congress in 2010, as it was able to do in 1994 after the defeat of the Clinton health care initiatives. The likelihood of such a scenario occurring seems remote, but still it is troubling. 🙁