The courtship of Ms. Collins offers a glimpse into what White House
officials say is an increasingly aggressive campaign to line up votes
for a health care bill, which faces a crucial vote in the Senate
Finance Committee this week. After months of cutting deals and stroking
drug makers, hospitals
and doctors, the president’s aides are laying the groundwork for a
final round of Congressional arm-twisting, with Mr. Obama increasingly
in a hands-on role.
As the Finance Committee wrestles with the
bill, which could form the backbone of an eventual Obama plan, the
lobbying effort is already bearing fruit. One Democrat who consults
frequently with the White House said that a main goal of the
administration has been to prevent any Democrat from publicly declaring
opposition to the measure. So far, the only one who has, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, has scaled back his criticism after a private Oval Office session with the president.
Rahm Emanuel,
the chief of staff, runs the campaign out of his West Wing office. A
former congressman, he knows how to count votes. (It was Mr. Emanuel,
for instance, who suggested Mr. Orszag reach out to Ms. Collins.) Aides
say he does not host a regular health care meeting, but rather summons
his team several times a day, typically with e-mail messages ordering
colleagues to drop everything and show up right that minute.
Mr. Emanuel oversees two working groups: a policy group, run by Nancy-Ann DeParle,
the head of the White House Office of Health Reform, and a political
group, run by Jim Messina, the deputy chief of staff. They are deeply
engaged in what Chris Jennings, who advised President Bill Clinton
on health policy, calls “intelligence seeking” — trying to learn who
has problems with the legislation, what those problems are and what it
will take to win each member’s vote.
“We are at the concern-addressing stage,” said Dan Pfeiffer,
Mr. Obama’s deputy communications director, adding, “This is a
political and policy challenge of epic proportions, and it takes a lot
of effort and attention to achieve it.”
Everyone who has relationships on Capitol Hill is expected to pitch in. Mr. Messina, a former chief of staff to Senator Max Baucus
of Montana, the Finance Committee chairman, is the link to the finance
panel. Phil Schiliro, the head of legislative affairs, spent years
working for Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who is an architect of the House bill. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who served for 36 years in the Senate, has been making calls to former colleagues, especially those on the Finance Committee.
Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary, and Gary Locke,
the commerce secretary, have also been working the phones. Their notes
are passed on to Mr. Schiliro’s shop, which catalogs them for future
use. The cabinet secretaries have also been doing interviews with
select regional news outlets to shore up wavering Democrats in
districts where Republicans are attacking Mr. Obama’s plans.
And the president has been holding more private meetings, aides say, with Democrats like Senator Maria Cantwell
of Washington, who said she received an invitation to the Oval Office
on a recent Friday, when she had hoped to spend the morning at home.
She said she told the president the legislation would have to do more
to rein in Medicare spending. “He was, like, ‘I’m all for this,’ ” Ms. Cantwell said.
“He is leaving no stone unturned,” said Senator Mary L. Landrieu,
the Louisiana Democrat and Finance Committee member, who received an
unsolicited call from Ms. Sebelius last week. She said they spent 20
minutes going over what she perceived as flaws in the bill.
The White House is carefully monitoring what senators say. When Senator Joseph I. Lieberman,
the Connecticut independent, said on a Sunday morning talk show that
health legislation should be delayed until the economy improves, his
chief of staff got a telephone call from a worried-sounding Louisa
Terrell, the White House legislative liaison assigned to monitor his
office.
“She said, ‘Does he want to speak to Sebelius, does he
want Peter Orszag?’ ” the senator said. He said it was not necessary.
But last Friday, while Mr. Lieberman was at home preparing for Rosh
Hashana, Mr. Locke, the commerce secretary, called. “He wanted to lobby
me on health care,” Mr. Lieberman said.
At least one White House official, Ms. DeParle, has gone so far as to make a house call. When Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, expressed misgivings about how expanding Medicaid
would affect California’s budget, Ms. DeParle gathered some charts and
dropped in on a Saturday. They spent nearly three hours talking over
coffee in Ms. Feinstein’s den.
Republicans who have been most
outspoken about their opposition to the White House say they have been
left out of the outreach effort, and some are irked. “The strategy
seems to be like a shooting gallery at the state fair; if you hit one
target, you win the prize,” said Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, chairman of the Republican conference.
By “one target,” he meant Ms. Collins’s colleague from Maine, Senator Olympia J. Snowe,
who serves on the Finance Committee and is considered Mr. Obama’s sole
hope for a Republican vote there. Ms. Collins, who does not sit on the
committee, has made clear that she would not get in Ms. Snowe’s way by
stating a position before Ms. Snowe does. But that has not stopped the
White House from working hard behind the scenes to secure her support.
Two
days after Mr. Obama addressed a joint session of Congress, Mr. Emanuel
invited Ms. Collins to meet with him in the West Wing — and
conveniently arranged for the president to drop in. When that failed to
produce a commitment, Mr. Emanuel urged Mr. Orszag to step in. Ms.
Collins is not surprised by the attention.
“This is clearly a
high priority for the president, and he is deploying all of his troops
to try to persuade people like me who thus far are not happy with any
of the bills,” she said. She came away from the dinner sounding
impressed — “Peter is very expert,” she said — but remained
noncommittal.
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