“
Compared to the egregious pork-barreling, logrolling, and patronage-dispensing tactics Senate leaders had traditionally used to get big, controversial bills like the Civil Rights Act or Ronald Reagan’s 1986 Tax Reform Act, or a package like the New Deal, passed, Harry’s methods were fairly benign. But those bills had passed during a time when most Washington horse-trading stayed out of the papers, before the advent of the twenty-four-hour news cycle. For us, the slog through the Senate was a PR nightmare. Each time Harry’s bill was altered to mollify another senator, reporters cranked out a new round of stories about “backroom deals.” Whatever bump in public opinion my joint address had provided to the reform effort soon vanished—and things got markedly worse when Harry decided, with my blessing, to strip the bill of something called “the public option.
”
”