Last Call

CNN helpfully gives the Democrats a direction to go from here.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found that 59 percent of those surveyed opposed the bill, and 39 percent favored it. All of the interviews were conducted before the House voted Sunday night, but the contents of the bill were widely known.

Well gosh, that's a disaster, right?  The Democrats are doomed?

The CNN poll also suggests that public opposition to health care will not necessarily be a boon to Republicans in the 2010 midterm elections in Congress.

Roughly one in five of respondents who said they opposed the bill did so because it was not liberal enough, and those people are unlikely to vote Republican. Take them out of the picture and opposition to the bill because it is too liberal is 43 percent.

Wait, so if you take the people who think the bill isn't liberal enough (16%) and make it better, won't the Dems win them over and they will like the bill?  If the Dems could win all those people over and combine them with the people who like the bill now, wouldn't that mean...gosh...a majority of the American people would support the bill?

Which group will be easier to win over, the people who hate the bill period, or the people who want you to improve the bill through, say, the public option?

Seems like a no brainer to me.  The further to the left this bill goes, the more people it covers and the better they are covered, the more people will like HCR.  If there's enough clear and demonstrable benefits for the cost, hey, you might even win over the people on the right, too.

Either way, the road forward is clear.  It starts with the Senate reconciliation improvements, hopefully as soon as next week.