They Win, You Lose.....

In 1993, the Republican Party pulled out all the stops to defeat President Clintons attempts to reform of the American Health care System. One of the main theorists behind the Republican strategy was William Kristol, who authored a memorandum titled "Project for a Republican Future". 

In the 4 page strategy outline, he laid out the basic talking points that are being expanded now to try to defeat Barack Obama's initiative.

The Kristol outline is very much what we are hearing today and plays upon the supposed effect on the economy that changing the way Health Care is made available to Americans.

It is a basically flawed piece of reasoning because it does not deal with the real facts.

It claims over and over again that the American system is the best in the world and of course does not deal with any of the real problems facing millions of Americans. It also deals with the realities of 16 years ago and the costs and strictures of the industry have increased incrementally.

Yet, the Kristol Memorandum makes on thing clear, over and over again. The spector of health care reform is seen as a clear threat to the welfare of the Republican Party and the sense of vunerablility is made clear over and over again.

It was said that if Clinton had been successful in reforming health care, the Republicans would have faced at least 20 years in the wilderness.

This is just one quote from the Kristol Memo:

 "But the Clinton proposal is also a serious political threat to the Republican Party. Republicans must therefore clearly understand the political strategy implicit in the Clinton plan--and then adopt an aggressive and uncompromising counterstrategy designed to delegitimize the proposal and defeat its partisan purpose."

No one has really spoken of this memo in this current struggle, but it is the heart of the Republican opposition. It's about power, not people.

They win, you lose........