Massachusetts election could endanger health care bill

WASHINGTON — Democrats faced the unthinkable Tuesday — losing their prized health care overhaul along with Edward M. Kennedy's Senate seat, just as Kennedy's and President Barack Obama's goal seemed tantalizing close to reality.

Obama and party leaders anxiously worked through fallback options — none good — for salvaging the president's top domestic initiative. At the same time, their eyes were on Massachusetts' special election.

If Republican state Sen. Scott Brown prevailed over Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakley, it would deprive Democrats of the 60-vote Senate majority needed to pass health care over the so-far-unanimous opposition of Republicans.

That would force Obama and Democratic leaders to consider a series of wrenching short cuts involving escalating political risk. Significant differences between the House and Senate health care bills would have to be quickly settled by presidential fiat, and Democratic lawmakers would have to move in virtual lockstep to enact them.

That could be too much to ask from rank-and-file Democrats demoralized by losing a seat held in an almost unbroken line by a Kennedy since 1953. Efforts to woo a Republican convert could increase. But with polls showing voters soured on health care overhaul — and GOP leaders certain to intensify their attack — the president could be abandoned by lawmakers of his own party.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs acknowledged for the first time that Obama may have come up short in making his case for the sweeping legislation.

"I think we'd be the first to admit that we think there are a lot more benefits than people see and feel in these bills," Gibbs told reporters. "If that's a failing, I think that it's certainly a failing that I and others here at the White House take responsibility for, up to and including the president."

Democratic congressional leaders put on a show of resolve. In 1994, Democrats failed to act on President Bill Clinton's health care package and lost control of Congress.

"Let's remove all doubt," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters Monday. "We will have health care one way or another."

But how to get it done?