Time Magazine reports that Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid doesn’t think they can get health care reform done in 2009:



Still struggling to line up the 60 votes that are needed to overcome a potential filibuster of health care reform, Senate majority leader Harry Reid sent a strong signal on Tuesday that President Obama is unlikely to be signing his top domestic priority into law this year, as Democrats had hoped.


Is it a coincidence that this statement came out on election day, as Democrat gubernatorial candidates were getting pounded in the swing states of Virginia and New Jersey?  Probably not. 


This piece in the Washington Post is a good example of conventional wisdom:  No, it’s not a referendum on the President personally, but this election does suggest that those voters who supported Obama aren’t as excited to support the generic Congressional Democrat, and that many are alarmed by some of the policies being pushed in Washington today.


It’s that last point that really matters.  Pundits can revisit what, if anything, this election says about 2010, but what many of us are more focused on what it means for today’s health care debate.  And though I’m sure the Democrats and their friends in much of the press will try to spin it otherwise, I don’t know how this election can be seen as anything other than a warning to vulnerable Democrats.  Voters don’t want a trillion dollar government take over of health care (see our poll) and if you follow the lead of Speaker Pelosi, you may pay a big price this time next year.