It seems to be conventional wisdom among liberals that Clinton suffered so much from the health-care debate simply because he didn’t pass anything. They conclude from this that Democrats must pass something at all costs. And some of them seem to think even passing an unpopular plan, on a strictly partisan vote, in an unseemly rush is better than nothing. But passing unpopular legislation doesn’t seem a natural winner. All this neglects the other problem Clinton had, which is that advocating for his big-government plan helped define him as a left-winger rather than the centrist he had campaigned as. Obama could avoid both of Clinton’s downfalls if he hit reset and scrapped the current bills and sat down with Republicans to negotiate something on a genuinely bi-partisan basis. That way, he’d both re-center himself before it’s too late and be assured (barring a massive revolt of Democrats) of passing something, albeit something much more modest than is being considered now.