Jonathan Bernstein: Obama Passing Healthcare Reform Is Like FDR Bringing Booze Back

[Jonathan Bernstein writes at aplainblogaboutpolitics.com]

Via a nice tweet from Brendan Nyhan, I see that Jay Cost is continuing to try to link the Democrats’ problems (which are, of course, very real) to their decision to act on health care reform:

Rather than focus on doing what the voters elected them to do, they instead focused on a longstanding ideological goal of the party elite. On the other hand, if [...] Obama had focused on restoring the economy - just as Franklin Roosevelt did in the historic 73rd Congress of 1933-34 - they might still be set for losses, but I think they would have been greatly mitigated, as at least they could claim they did everything that could be done to restore the economy to health. Similarly, if FDR had decided to pursue the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Social Security Act rather than stabilizing the economy during the First New Deal, I think the Democrats would have suffered serious losses in the 1934 midterm. Instead, FDR wisely saved those sorts of reforms for later years.

...In fact, what the Democrats did as soon as the took office was to launch a major campaign on a social issue that had nothing to do with the economy at all but everything to do with pleasing their urban constituencies. That’s right, one of the very first bills that Roosevelt signed, just days into his presidency, was the repeal of prohibition (in legislative form; passing the 21st Amendment took longer the rest of the year, and of course didn’t require presidential action, but was still a case of the Democratic Party focusing on fulfilling a non-economic plank in their party platform. Oh, and if that’s not good enough...guess what else the 73rd Congress did? How about: gun control!...