NEOAVATARA

Democrats have been living on a sugar high.  Obama’s election, with the near sweep of elections in Congress last year, made them believe that the public was behind virtually anything they do.

They obviously couldn’t be more wrong.

That is the rationale behind pushing for passage of Obamacare through the Senate using reconciliation.  With the faltering poll numbers, and now the death of Senator Ted Kennedy, it is becoming more and more obvious that Democrats have no chance of passing Obamacare, especially with the public option, without using reconciliation.

Unfortunately for Democrats, the public wholeheartedly disagress.  In a new poll from Rasmussen, there is a supermajority of the public that is against reconciliation.

If Democrats agree on a health care reform bill that is opposed by all Republicans in Congress, 24% of voters nationwide say the Democrats should pass that bill.

But a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 58% believe the Democrats should change the bill to win support from “a reasonable number of Republicans.” Nineteen percent (19%) are not sure what congressional Democrats should do.

This makes it even harder for Democrats to go down this path.  It was always difficult using the arcane reconciliation rules for health care.  They were made purely for budgetary necessities, not to debate difficult policy initiatives.

The Rasmussen poll gives even worse numbers on the health care debate as a whole .  While voters are split 47%-47% on whether Barack Obama understands the bill in Congress, there isn’t much debate on whether Congress itself understands it.  Only 22% of voters think that Congress has a good or excellent understanding of it, while a whopping 73% gives them fair or poor marks.  Even Democrats think Congress doesn’t comprehend it, 61%-31%, hardly a ringing vote of confidence.  Independents have an even harsher judgment: only 12% believe Congress understands its own bill, while 79% give them low marks.  That’s actually worse than Republicans, among whom 17% give Congress good marks.

I know that the Democrats feel that the death of Ted Kennedy may give them new impetus to pass health care reform.  But the poll numbers simply look worse and worse.  Sure, they can pass the bill using reconciliation.  However, what the public is saying is that if they do that, there will be severe repercussions, both for the President as well as Congress in the 2010 elections.  The public elected Barack Obama hoping for more bipartisanship.  They thought that he, as a singularly unique personality, could change the environment in Washington.  That was never the case.  However, using reconciliation to take control of 1/6 of the U.S. economy looks like a pure partisan power-grab.  That does not appear to be going over well with the American public.  Simply put, they want the bipartisanship that they hoped for with the election of President Obama.  And if Democrats put a stake through their heart, well, there will be hell to pay.