Use the Tools You Have Been Given

Barack Obama now has his chance. He has the Altar of Ted Kennedy from which to demand single payer health care.

The swing demographic on this issue are Reagan democrats, who were Kennedy democrats before that. Their heartstrings can be plucked, but he must work quickly, and emotionally.
They trusted Ted. Would he have lied to them about health care? It was his life's work.

If he cannot use the Kennedy dynastic martyrdom to sell what the majority of Americans want, what a majority of the first worlds' citizens and a majority of America's old people enjoy and endorse, he is not the politician we thought he was, and deserves the failure in which his presidency will be viewed.

If he refuses to use the emotion of Kennedy's death and the unfinished business of his legislative life, then the fix was always in.

Mark Antony used a bier to gain an empire. This is about a fucking bill.

If he doesn't want to use emotion to sway the people, if he continues to view them as dispassionate college freshmen, then he is in the wrong business, or the wrong country.