Three new realities of the Obama Era

The passage of health-care reform has reshaped more than the insurance industry. It's brought a truce on abortion, married Republicans to the mob, and restored progressivism to the presidency after a five-decade hiatus

Robert Shrum

The greatest progressive victory in nearly half a century -- the decision to make health care at last a right and not a privilege -- will reach far beyond American medicine to transform the shape and future of our politics.

Predictably, the Republicans remain trapped in a nihilistic past, waging a last-ditch battle for some token consolation prize via the Senate reconciliation process. (On a parliamentary point, they succeeded in limiting a technical portion of the student loan reforms attached to the measure. Now there's something to toast with a cup of stale tea.)

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Robert Shrum has been a senior adviser to the Gore 2000 presidential campaign, the campaign of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and the British Labour Party. In addition to being the chief strategist for the 2004 Kerry-Edwards campaign, Shrum has advised thirty winning U.S. Senate campaigns; eight winning campaigns for governor; mayors of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other major cities; and the Democratic Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. Shrum's writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The New Republic, Slate, and other publications. The author of No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner (Simon and Schuster), he is currently a Senior Fellow at New York University's Wagner School of Public Service.