August 01, 2009 06:02 PM UTC

Dr. Jared And Mr. Hyde?

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• by: Colorado Pols

Thursday night, Rep. Jared Polis hosted a phone-in townhall meeting that we understand was attended by a decent number of CD-2 voters. We weren’t on the call, but we’re told by liberals who have been alarmed of late by Polis’ controversial demands to reduce spending and taxes in the health care reform proposal that he articulated himself pretty well–expressing the kind of support for all the key components of the plan that the liberal base in his district expects.

If they hung up with a bit of a disconnect between his representations of the healthcare reform bill to them as opposed to, for example, the Washington Post, they were probably prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. Polis is an engaging and disarming personality, we don’t doubt his ability to hold forth persuasively–especially in a forum he controls.

But then in the New York Times yesterday, “other Jared” struck again…

Working somewhat as a bloc, and also through other groups like the fiscally conservative Blue Dogs, the freshmen helped not only to postpone a floor vote but also to spur concessions on cost and regional disparities. In addition, in response to freshman demands, party leaders are talking about raising the threshold for any surtaxes that could hit small businesses.

“On issues where we agree, we are not afraid to speak out together and flex our muscles,” said Representative Jared Polis, Democrat of Colorado and an author of a letter to Ms. Pelosi challenging the proposed surtax. “And one of those issues in the context of the health care debate was speaking out against tax increases we saw as too expensive.”

That’s it. Entire contribution from Polis to the story. “Tax increases. Too expensive.” It’s what we’ve seen from him repeatedly now, this whole other guy who looks just like the Jared Polis that tells his constituents he supports health care reform, but then feeds talking points to the opposition.

What the hell is going on? Is it so hard to understand that apart from specific technical concerns one may have–and have a wonderful noncontroversial opportunity as a legislator to address–when all your quotes in the biggest media outlets in America are bashing the proposal, in these maddening unqualified terms tailor-made for misuse by opponents, you’re going to piss off the proposal’s supporters? No matter how many times you tell them “no no, I really do support this?”

Rep. Polis is going to have a month of townhall meetings and other events to explain himself during the August recess, and he won’t always have the benefit of cherry-picking the audience. As we said before, Polis has tied himself to the fate of health care reform with his actions–he’ll either be part of a solution that the Democratic base will cheer, or he will go down in history as a freshman representative who helped obstruct passage of one of the Democratic Party’s biggest priorities. The problem for Polis is he doesn’t really have control over that outcome; but after spiking the debate with poorly-explained ‘concerns’ that seem to contradict everything else he says about the issue, he’ll be held accountable for it. That is not a situation we would ever advise a politician with an interest in self-preservation to get into.

However it plays out, we’ll be here to note the consequences.