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Democrats didn’t lose the battle of 2010. They won it.

By William Saletan

Democrats have lost the House, and health care is getting the blame. Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, a retiring Democrat, says his party “overreached by focusing on health care rather than job creation” and by spending $1 trillion on “a major entitlement expansion.” Sen. John McCain’s economic adviser agrees. Pundits say the health care bill killed President Obama’s approval ratings, cost congressional Democrats their jobs, and snuffed out the legacy of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “Virtually every House Democrat from a swing district who took a gamble by voting for the health law made a bad political bet,” says the New York Times. The Los Angeles Times laments that “the measure of a leader in Washington isn’t how much gets done, it’s who holds power in the end. On that scale, Pelosi failed.”

I’m not buying the autopsy or the obituary. In the national exit poll, voters were split on health care. Unemployment is at nearly 10 percent. Democrats lost a lot of seats that were never really theirs, and those who voted against the bill lost at a higher rate than did those who voted for it. But if health care did cost the party its majority, so what? The bill was more important than the election.

I realize that sounds crazy. We’ve become so obsessed with who wins or loses in politics that we’ve forgotten what the winning and losing are about. Partisans fixate on punishing their enemies in the next campaign. Reporters, in the name of objectivity, refuse to judge anything but the Election Day score card. Politicians rationalize their self-preservation by imagining themselves as dynasty builders. They think this is the big picture.

They’re wrong. The big picture isn’t about winning or keeping power. It’s about using it. I’ve made this argument before, but David Frum, the former speechwriter to President Bush, has made it better. In March, when Democrats secured enough votes to pass the bill, he castigated fellow conservatives who looked forward to punishing Pelosi and President Obama “with a big win in the November 2010 elections.” Frum observed:

Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now. … No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage?

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Story Compliments Of Slate.com