Lessons Learned from Battles Gone By: Obama Preps Grassroots for the Coming Health Care Fight

"The plan at that point emphasized grassroots organizational work so that, as [a Democratic National Committee official] said, 'party supporters in every state, every congressional district, conceivably every county in this country, would be organizing, engaging in the debate, taking on the special interests, and we would see that they had the information to do that.'" -- The System: The American Way of Politics at the Breaking Point

Sound familiar? It did to me. After having spent the better part of an hour this afternoon listening in on a Organizing for America conference call focused on ramping up the Obama grassroots network for the upcoming struggle over health care reform, it was striking to happen across that passage while doing some reading this evening. That's because those words on DNC-driven "grassroots organizational work" were written in 1996. They come from Haynes Johnson and David Broder's recounting of the battle over health care during the first term of Bill Clinton's presidency. History doth repeat itself, no doubt.

Barack Obama has a reputation as a politician who does his homework and knows his political history. Today 's telephone call with Organizing for America's Jeremy Bird and Mitch Stewart, the DNC's Natalie Foster, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, President Obama himself, and volunteers and organizers suggested that team Obama have learned at least two lessons about how to win reform from the bruising health care fight of the early 1990s. The first: Keep it simple. And the second: Make it personal.

That pair of ideas formed the basis of the marching orders the president and allies delivered to supporters on today's Organizing for America conference call.

Under the Clinton White House, Johnson and Broder recount, the president's health care plan devolved into a mess of confusing policy concepts -- community rating, rationing, payment caps, and health alliance purchase plans. The wonkish way Team Clinton talked about health reform left America scratching its collective head. By contrast, the counter portrait offered by '90s opponents to reform like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh was dead simple and terrifying to many: government-run health care. (Seriously, Gingrich and Limbaugh? History really doth repeat itself.) In today's pep talk to supporters, Organizing for America's Executive Director Mitch Stewart repeatedly hammered home simplicity borrowed from reforms opponents. Calling them "the President's health care principles," Stewart lasered in on three core tenets of the coming Obama plan: (1) reduced costs, (2) choice, and (3) health care for everyone.

'This is our opportunity," said Stewart. "This is our year."

But policy principles aren't enough. President Clinton at first embraced, and then lost track of, the idea that when it comes to health care people are most concerned about their doctor, their kids' health care, and their family's costs. Polling during that era, reported Johnson and Broder, found that Americans were less interested in a national policy shift than they were about what health reform mean in their own lives and the lives of those they cared about. Organizing for America and the DNC let supporters know today that in the coming health care fight they would be deploying the same person-to-person approach that drove Obama to the White House. "This is why we won the campaign," said David Plouffe, "Human beings talking to human beings." DNC New Media Director Natalie Foster told supporters and organizers on the call that they would soon have access to online phone call tools, downloadable neighborhood walk lists, and conversational scripts. "Just like we did during the campaign," Foster said, "everything you need to engage people in the fight for health care." Stewart announced a series of health care house parties on June 6th, followed by a round of community-focused events on June 27th loosely organized around the theme of personal health -- like food drives or, he suggested, "a walkathon to promote fitness."

As Johnson and Broder tell it, grassroots organizers at the Democratic National Committee during the '90s health care battle felt abandoned by President Clinton. Obama himself, meanwhile, got on today's call while flying back from a fundraising trip to California, adding some presidential weight to Organizing for America's call to arms. "Pardon the interruption," came a voice as Stewart talked. "This is the Air Force One operator. I have President Obama on the line." The break seemed to stun everyone involved into silence. "Sir," said the operator, "Can you hear me okay?" "Yes we can," said Stewart, (seemingly unaware that he was reverting to campaign slogan).

The President got on the line. "We know what's at stake," he told those on the call. "We know we need reforms. Health care costs are crushing families, businesses, government budgets. Americans now spend more on health care than on housing and food...This is our big chance to prove that the movement that started during the campaign isn't over. We're just getting started."

"We've got to get it done this year," Obama told supporters on the call. "If we don't get it done this year, we're not going to get it done."