Where are political moderates when health care needs them?
Yet Democrats can't afford to be too cocky. It is they who have lost not only the House, Senate and White House but also a majority of state legislatures and governors' offices -- all in the Obama years.
A look back reveals that Democrats suffered a problem that Republicans could face today, a buildup of numbers in some districts -- particularly those that favored Obama -- and, at the same time, a massive erosion in others, particularly those that favored Trump.
Thanks to the Electoral College, as Dems learned the hard way in 2000 and last year, Republican votes spread out across more important swing states than Democratic votes. The result has posed a challenge to Democrats to return to the working-class and lower-middle-class voters who reliably delivered them congressional majorities from the days of the Franklin D. Roosevelt coalition until the rise of Ronald Reagan conservatism after the 1970s.
If anyone understands those swing voters that Democrats need to reach, it is West Virginia's Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democratic ACA supporter who nevertheless has been just conservative enough to keep his seat in his red state. His secret, in my view, is to show constituents in his highly impoverished state that, regardless of his party affiliation, he understands them and he's on their side.
Memorably, Manchin says he cautioned President Trump against underestimating Obamcare's popularity. It has brought badly needed coverage such as opiate addiction treatment and mental health services to many for the first time.
Some 172,000 West Virginians have insurance for the first time, Manchin says he told Trump. "They don't know how they got it," he said, but "they're going to know who took it away from them."
There's general agreement in both parties that Obamacare needs repairs. But we need more moderates like Manchin who are willing and able to work across party lines to make those repair on behalf of their voters, not against them.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)
(c) 2017 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
