Lacking broad bipartisan legitimacy, Obamacare slowly, inexorably turns to shit

Our Federal constitution was designed to build and sustain consensus across a Continental scale empire. Occasionally there is an electoral anomaly that technically obviates this need for bipartisanship and consensus building. But you would have to be a particularly foolish and historically blind man to fall to the temptation of a 'quick win' by passing a one sided partisan outrage like the so called Obamacare. One would think that a President who was billed as "brilliant" and served at the University of Chicago as a Constitutional "scholar" would  have known better.

Because jamming transformational legislation down the nation's throat without building bipartisan consensus means relying on a bare minimum of sixty senators.  It paradoxically makes your 'extra strong' legislative position extra weak because now the loss of a single vote can kill your bill, resulting in an almost irresistible opportunity to hold the law hostage unless every single senator in the majority's pet provision is included. This leads to obscure and embarrassing bribes that overshadowed the good parts of the bill.  And to get past the extortion you rush the bill through using legislative gimmicks and dodgy accounting, leaving huge holes for all the people who were humiliated by your one sided power play to hamstring you in the courts, in implementation and in public opinion. Which is pretty much what decisions like the Hobby Lobby and now the Subsidy Eligibility do.

How much better for the President and the nation had he pursued a less grandiose law that was supported by a bipartisan supermajority of say 75 senators.  That kind of law might not have made the hard left sing Ode to Joy but it would also have been a durable one, borne out of the participation of both parties in its crafting, passage and implementation.  UnlikeObamacare, a law law like that could have actually worked .

It's as if Barack Obama came to the Presidency with absolutely no experience in building coalitions, passing and implementing legislation or in executive leadership.  But that can't be right can it?  

The Presidency is no place for OJT.