Joe Biden Must Be Having Flashbacks

David Axelrod: “In early 2010, when Democrats lost a special election for the late Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat — and with it, their ability to overcome a Republican filibuster — Washington rose as one, an insistent chorus of grim reapers, reading last rites over the Affordable Care Act and Barack Obama’s presidency. By then, Mr. Obama had been through six fruitless months of negotiations with Republicans, followed by fierce internal battles between House and Senate Democrats over the details of the plan. The Massachusetts defeat seemed as if it would doom the ACA, the centerpiece of his legislative agenda.”

“Twelve years later, President Biden finds himself in a similar fix. Sen. Joe Manchin’s sudden announcement that he would deny the president the critical 50th Democratic vote for his prized Build Back Better Act was a bitter blow. It came after months of politically costly, maddening negotiations, during which Mr. Manchin provoked a series of big concessions, only to present the president and his party with a lump of coal just before Christmas.”