SUSIE MADRAK'S POINT 4

At Crooks & Liars, she lays out 10 mistakes the Obama administration has made in dealing with health care reform. I think her 4th point is key:

4) Single payer. It would have been so much easier if we'd started with it. Hell, we might even have won - and it's simple enough that most people would understand. But whatever.

We knew that we'd have to compromise, so we should've started with our maximal position so the inevitable compromises wouldn't be so bad. This would also have given the Blue Dogs and the few moderate Republicans some cover because they could always say "It could have been worse" if they were criticized.