The situation:
There's an fascinating debate going on in liberal circles about just how serious progressive Democratic congressmen are about voting down a health care bill that does not contain a public option. The threat to do so has been made frequently and forcefully, both by rank-and-file members and by the Majority Leader. But is it a credible one?
On the one hand, I'd have trouble being persuaded that progressives would actually prefer to maintain the status quo than to pass a bill without a public option. Now, I can certainly imagine a bill being so bad that it would be a net setback to progressives' goals -- say you had something without a public option, employer mandate, or a national exchange, but with a strict individual mandate and which only provided subsidies up to 200 percent of poverty -- and that this bill were funded through a fairly regressive means like a value added tax. That would be a pretty terrible piece of policy and progressives (and most everyone else not employed by an insurance company) would be right to oppose it. But if you took something more like the current House bill, stripped it of the public option (replacing it with co-ops, I guess) and maintained everything else, this bill would still accomplish several important progressive and pubic policy goals (and avoid a major near-term political disaster for the President). Progressives, rightly, would like such a bill less. But for them to prefer the status quo to such a solution doesn't seem credible. That's why a lot of people have trouble taking the progressives' threats at face value.
On the other hand, suppose that we reverse this argument: are there Blue Dogs who would prefer the status quo to a bill with a public option -- but would prefer a bill without a public option to the status quo? The qualifier is important. Three House committees have already approved bills containing public options. In each case, some Blue Dog votes were lost. But how many of these Blue Dogs would have voted to approve the bill if it didn't contain a public option? That is far less clear. Some of them might have, almost certainly. But progressives ought to be wary of Blue Dogs (and Republicans) who argue against a public option -- when they may simply be opposed to the entire concept of meaningful health care reform.
To recap:
A. If the only two choices were to pass an (otherwise decent) bill without a public option and to pass nothing at all, and everyone knew these were the only two choices, I believe the bill would almost certainly pass; progressives would cave.
B. On the other hand, if the only two choices were to pass a bill with a public option and nothing at all, and everyone knew these were the only two choices, I believe at least some Blue Dogs would cave and the bill would stand a decent shot at passing. This is far less clear, however; it is incumbent upon progressives to determine whether a bill with a public option really does stand a shot a passage. If not then their threat is idle at best, and self-destructive at worst.
And what does it mean to "go Tilt?"
In poker, one of the situations when a player is most prone to go on tilt is when he had been on a winning streak and then begins to lose. It's one thing when you simply aren't getting cards all night and lose money slowly and steadily. When this happens, most poker players are pretty good at accepting that it just isn't their night and will continue to play reasonably well, if perhaps a little overcautiously. But if you had been winning -- if you had already "booked" the win in your mind -- and then you start losing, things can get really, really ugly. You'll make bold, rash, irrational gambles. Your big win will turn into a small win and, if you're not careful, into a big loss.
This is sort of the situation that progressives are in right now. They're not in a mood to compromise. They're in a mood to gamble. This may well be irrational. It may well prove to be self-destructive. But the one thing you never, never want to do with someone who is on tilt is to try to bluff them off their hand.
