UPDATE: HHS

I will have to write posts more often supporting the confirmation of candidates. I wrote the Daschle post at 8AM and Sebelius was confirmed at about 4PM today. Up next will be filling key spots within HHS to create her executive team.

60 here we go

Breaking News, sort of. PA republican Spector has officially become a member of the Democratic party. Once Franken is seated, Democrats will have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate if they can keep all of their members together. More analysis on why Spector switched later.

The Political Impact of The Loss of Daschle

With the outbreak of Swine Flu, the public's attention has been somewhat refocused back on the United States' health services. If you have been watching carefully, you might think it odd that the government's position on containing the spread of the Swine Flu has come predominantly from Janet Napolitano (DHS). While the CDC has issued statements and held a few press conferences, the person providing the message is not the director of the CDC. For those that do not know, the CDC is not part of DHS, but is located inside the cabinet department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

A natural question may be why is the director of DHS fielding questions on Swine Flu and not the director of HHS? The reason is that there currently is no director of HHS. Furthermore, there is no director of the CDC either. Both of these positions have remained vacant as a result of Tom Daschle having withdrawn his name (due to tax issues) to be the next head of HHS and Health Czar for the Obama administration.

As candidate Obama moved to president-elect Obama, one of the first confirmed nominations that he would propose was Daschle to HHS. This was not a surprise given the amount of campaigning Daschle had done on behalf of Obama, as well as massive amounts of advising that Daschle provided the Obama campaign on health care reform. The problem that arose is that once it was clear that Daschle's tax issues would make it impossible for him to be confirmed without a serious fight from Republicans, and that even if confirmed he would enter a critical position with very little political capital, the Obama administration had no back-up plan. Given the economic turmoil, the administration chose to focus its resources on the confirmation of Timothy Geithner and passing the stimulus package; the result of which was that filling the top post at HHS was pushed into the background.

Currently, Kansas governor Kathleen Sebeluis is the Obama administration's choice to lead HHS. She has been approved by the Senate committee, but only after a drawn-out set of hearings over her qualifications to head HHS. She has not yet been confirmed by the full Senate. Thus, HHS continues without its top job filled.

The effect of this, however, is not limited to just HHS HQ. Many top positions within HHS and its associated agencies (CDC for example) remain unfilled as the director of HHS is typically given discretion to fill these spots in order to create his/her health team. Beyond the lack of filling key positions within the HHS community, the lack of a champion/leader at HHS for health care reform has pushed this issue somewhat into the background. While the administration has made it clear that it will attempt heath care reform soon, there is no question that the failed nomination of Daschle has, at the very least, resulted in false start on health care reform and, at worse, dealt it a deadly blow by not allowing it to proceed during Obama's honeymoon period.

It is important to note that blame on this issue firmly rests on both sides of the aisle. For Democrats, blame rests in not conducting a proper vetting of Daschle and for not having a ready-to-go back-up in case his nomination failed. For Republicans, the continual use of senatorial holds and procedural blocking motions has prevented Sebelius from having a timely nomination procedure and instead has resulted in an unnecessary drawn-out process leaving important posts in HHS vacant.

While the blame on both sides can be justified, it would appear -- given the current health crisis and the need for health care reform -- that the failed Daschle nomination cost the Obama administration more than it has publicly admitted. However, the question now becomes whether both sides will stick to their past mistakes, or recognize that today's needs require that HHS have a director and try to find common ground so that Sebelius can be confirmed.

A Sign of Popular Support? Sure, But For Who?

The election held to fill Kirsten Gillibrand's (D) vacant seat for the House in upstate NY appears to be over, with Democrat Scott Murphy the declared winner. For those unfamiliar with Gillibrand, she was NY Governor Patterson's selection to fill the vacant Senate seat left by Hillary Clinton when she became the Secretary of State (and yes you should note the irony that NY state law allows the Governor to select the replacement for a vacant Senate seat, but on the other hand requires a special election to fill a House seat). The final tally from the election will still take some time, but it appears that Murphy will win by a slim margin of about 400 votes.

What has made this special election interesting from a pundit's perspective is that, in many ways, both parties can use it as support that their message is resonating with the public. For the Democrats, the argument is fairly straightforward. They won the seat, which provides further evidence that the public, or at least the NY 20th district, supports the direction the Obama administration is taking the country. In addition, Murphy is relatively unknown. Thus the argument could be made that he won primarily on the Democratic brand name.

While not a bad story and quite plausible, the closeness of this election could be spun as somewhat worrisome for Democrats. The NY 20th is a demographically and historically democratic district. It had just voted by a large margin to send Gillibrand back to Washington and voted by a 8 to 1 margin as a district for Obama. Thus, any Democrat that could walk, talk and chew bubblegum should have been able to win the district easily. Therefore, the closeness of the election could be seen as a good sign for Republicans that the public is not certain of the direction the Obama administration is taking the country.

While there was exit polling done on this election, the results miss sampling requirements by quite a large margin to really offer any conclusive evidence as to which story is right. However, I think there are two additional factors that make the Republican story unlikely. First, Republicans deployed a lot more resources into this election than Democrats who viewed it as a cake walk. This, coupled with the fact that turnout rates were very low for the special election, could have resulted in a closer outcome than would have occurred during a normal election.

Second, the Republicans have still failed to find a message. If you followed the campaign rhetoric in this special election, you may have noticed that the Republican message in rallies, print, radio, and TV was over and over again was we are not Obama. But as history has shown, to win elections you not only have to separate yourself from your opponent, but have to give the voters a message of your own. For example, if you look at the 2004 versus the 2008 election, besides the economy (which was a big factor in 2008), a huge difference between Kerry and Obama's strategy in running against Bush/McCain was that Obama did not just attack the Republican Party/status quo, but offered an alternative message that was more than just I am not anti-[fill in the blank]. I am not suggesting that this alone is why Obama won the election, only that to be successful you have to have a message of your own.

In my view, what the special election for the NY 20th showed above all else is that the Republicans still lack a message or alternative view for how the nation should recover. Thus, while the Republicans can look at this special election with some hope for the next elections, this hope may be built on shaky ground. While there is still a year and a half until the next congressional elections, the special election in the NY 20th may indicate that one party is on the rise for successful elections in 2010. Which party, of course, depends on your point of view.