And now for something completely frivolous..

This tweet by ER doc Seth Trueger, pointing to a blog post by ACA stats guru Charles Gaba, got me feeling singy, as Winnie-the-Pooh would put it:

how many types of health insurance are there in the US now? by @charles_gaba; @louisenorris @_kjkelly @xpostfactoid1 http://t.co/rjQpNHfp9P
— Seth Trueger (@MDaware) March 7, 2015

Resulting in this serial-tweet nonsense:

How many roads must man walk down
before you call him insured?
How many frivolous suits must fail
before health reform is secured?
How many deaths will it take till we know
our health system still isn't cured?
The answer, my friend,
is forecast by Sean Trende,
the answer is forecast by Sean Trende.

You don't think Trende belongs here? He wanted to come in, as Pooh would say.

Where Obama's Green Lantern lies

Sean Trende offers up a kind of excuse for pundits and centrists who indulge in what political scientist Brendan Nyhan calls Green Lanternism. --lambasting Obama for failures of ill-defined "leadership," i.e., for failing to charm the Republicans out of their scorched-earth opposition or to overcome the extreme constraints the Constitution imposes on presidential power in domestic affairs.   According to Trende, the expectation that Obama would exert magical powers to overcome opposition derives from the campaign Obama ran in 2008:

Many of the president’s supporters thought they were voting for the Green Lantern in 2008.

Remember, the actual policy differences between Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards were pretty limited. To help distinguish himself from the pack, and to attack Clinton indirectly, Obama all but dressed up in green tights, claiming that his candidacy would enable us to put old arguments behind us, bring people together, and transform the country.

There is an element of truth to this, as there was an element of malarkey in Obama's promise to usher in "a different kind of politics."  But only an element, on both sides of that equation. Obama's core pitch and promise in 2008 was more realistic and tough-minded than "I can melt the opposition."

Data in the chatter: life in the Nate Silver era

The Democrats' loss of the House in 1994, like most high-stakes contests, was treated like a morality play, and widely ascribed to the ignominious dissolution of the party's healthcare reform efforts.

This year, determined not to repeat the past, Democrats screwed their courage to the sticking post and passed a comprehensive HCR bill.

What if this brave and purposeful action is followed by, say, an 80-seat loss, as Sean Trende (that's a stage name, right?) provisionally forecasts and Jonathan Chait acknowledges as a not-unlikely scenario?

Personally, I'm fine with it. I think a Republican takeover of either chamber would be bad for the country.  But the 111th Congress has done what it set out to do, and what it had to do to save the country's short-term (via the stimulus) and long-term (via HCR) economic prospects. My hat is off, and my wallet is open.  If the party loses big-time in November, I will chalk it up to a) natural tidal movement following large gains in the past two elections, b) being caught holding the bag following the financial meltdown, and c) the power of relentless Republican demagoguery, feeding on the anger of a country enduring near-10% unemployment, and amplified in ever-new ways by Fox, Limbaugh etc.