Voter Backlash Feared on Medicare Drug Benefit

In a worst-case scenario, President Bush and lawmakers of both parties could wind up being blamed by voters, whatever they do. They could be blamed either for failure to pass a bill or for passing a bill that falls too far short of voters' expectations, a description that appears to fit the bills passed by the House and Senate last month.

"We're moving from a win-win situation to a lose-lose situation," which is likely to make it difficult to cut a House-Senate deal on the issue, said Thomas E. Mann, a government scholar at the Brookings Institution.

Opinion on the likely political fallout divides largely along party lines. "Both parties have promised it. The Republican Party will benefit the most if it passes," said Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (N.Y.), chairman of the House Republicans' campaign committee. "I think we only lose if we don't pass anything."

But if the benefits are seen as inadequate, Bush will be blamed, along with the tax cuts he espoused that reduce revenue for programs such as drug benefits, said Rep. Robert T. Matsui (Calif.), Reynolds's Democratic counterpart. "In a way, Republicans might have been better off just talking about it," he added.

Their conclusions were backed up by assessments of leading party pollsters. "I'd rather have a fight with the Democrats over a bill we passed . . . rather than talking about how the president failed to do something he promised to do four years ago," said GOP pollster Bill McInturff. But Democratic pollster Geoffrey Garin said that, for both parties, "the risk of doing the wrong thing may outweigh the risk of doing nothing at all."

Dean, as the outsider who has expanded health benefits in Vermont, gains from this debacle.