A.B. Stoddard

You don’t have to read Going Rogue: An American Life to know that Sarah Palin is running for something: leader of a conservative movement, president of the United States, talk show host, top draw with the speakers bureau. Ideally, something involving rope lines.

Former President Bill Clinton — the Big Dog himself — called on Senate Democrats at the Capitol this week, imploring them to compromise on healthcare reform.

The surprise victory for a Democrat in New York’s 23rd district Tuesday, a seat the GOP has held since 1870, laid bare the deep divisions that threaten the Republicans’ return to power. Republicans hoping to ride Tea Party coattails of conservative, grassroots anger are battling those in their party who argue a winning coalition must include moderate Republicans who can win again in upstate New York, the rest of the Northeast, the Rocky Mountain West and all other territory claimed by Democrats in 2006 and 2008. But as Democrats delight in a GOP civil war, they should be wary: They could be facing one of their own pretty soon.

As President Barack Obama comes to a conclusion about a way forward in Afghanistan, all eyes turn to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who devised the counterinsurgency strategy Obama is poised to embrace or reject. But McChrystal’s moment of truth is nothing compared to the one Obama’s choice will become for Vice President Joe Biden.

Look around you — green shoots are suddenly sprouting up on behalf of a public healthcare option. The public plan is back from the dead, not only holding steady in public opinion polls but earning healthcare reform’s version of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval: a decent score from the Congressional Budget Office.

Here’s an idea: as we seek the cooperation of nations across the globe in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, recovering from a global recession, joining forces in Afghanistan against the Taliban, preventing a nuclear Iran, fighting radical Islamic jihad around the world and even purchasing our debt, let’s ridicule the president of the United States for winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) chose public service, and later the challenge of leadership, never could she have imagined defending someone like Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.). Colleagues who would become powerful chairmen and friends, then got drunk on power — investigated for earmarks and failing to pay taxes — perhaps. But standing before cameras to say someone like Grayson shouldn’t have to apologize for comparing a lack of health insurance for 47 million people to the Holocaust, accusing the GOP of wanting sick people to “die quickly” and calling his Republican colleagues “knuckle-dragging Neanderthals,” surely that was unthinkable.

Raise your hand if you think the midterm elections in 2010 will be decided by happy voters.
Yes, there is bipartisan agreement that comfort, satisfaction and contentment won’t be going to the polls next year. Rage, fear and frustration will be turning out instead, and Democrats will be the ones wearing the bull’s-eye.

Amid the chaos of the healthcare reform battle, it may be hard to believe, but those stars President Barack Obama spoke so hopefully about are actually beginning to align. Yes, the whole endeavor could die a predictable death, but if Democrats want it badly enough, it looks like healthcare reform could be theirs for the taking.

This week, as conservatives focused their energies on White House czars, federal funding for ACORN and the martyrdom of Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), David Frum continued his lonely fight to rebrand conservatism and challenged his party to stop defending the status quo on healthcare.