Barney Frank: Obama Made 'Mistake' With Health Care Push

Well the President did lose a majority in the US House of Representatives later that year when he did pass "Obamacare". How did the outgoing Massachusetts Congressman come to this conclusion (via Instapundit)?

Frank referenced former President Bill Clinton and his failed health care plan from the 1990s. “Obama made the same mistake Clinton made,” Frank said in a wide-ranging interview with New York magazine. “When you try to extend health care to people who don’t have it, people who have it and are on the whole satisfied with it get nervous.”

The outgoing representative from Massachusetts added that after Republican Scott Brown won former Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s seat, breaking Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority, Obama should have backed down: “I think we paid a terrible price for health care. I would not have pushed it as hard. As a matter of fact, after Scott Brown won, I suggested going back. I would have started with financial reform but certainly not health care," Frank said.

He said that if the president had followed his advice, “you could have gotten some pieces of it.”

With that in mind I wonder what's the trend (via Newsalert) is for President Obama heading into re-election later this year:

Modern presidents who got re-elected were all leading in the polls at this point in their presidencies — as were some who lost anyway. Obama is in a statistical tie with Romney in the first Gallup daily tracking poll of the general election, and that might not be enough.

I won't conclude this posting without that chart below

My own conclusion looking at these numbers. If the incumbent President is under 45% then it's unlikely that the incumbent will lose his bid for re-election. George Herbert Walker (H.W.) Bush at this time in 1992 was at 41 and lost to Bill Clinton that November. Jimmy Carter was at 42 and lost to Ronald Reagan that November.