Explaining the road ahead on ObamaCare, Rich Lowry said on Meet the Press:

So they, so they have to try to force it through just on sheer partisan muscle. They’re going to come down with the full force of the party and, and the president on every single one of these members. And Nancy Pelosi’s going to channel Ataturk and his famous order of the battle of Gallipoli:  “I don’t order you to attack, I order you to die.” And Democrats, they seem to think that if they pass this they’re going to put it behind him. They’ll really put it right back in front of them again. This will be a debate for years because this bill has serious legitimacy problems.

This strikes me as a key point. The only way to put this issue behind Democrats, get back to focusing on the economy, and defuse the electorate’s anger is to vote this down. By passing it, the Democrats will invite perpetual challenges — a never-ending stream of  measures to repeal it and a continuous campaign (beginning this year and extending to 2012 and beyond) to rip it out by the roots. In a sense, it’s like Roe v. Wade — a highly controversial action that was viewed as procedurally illegitimate by a large segment of the electorate and that energized an entire movement dedicated to its repeal.

The question, then, isn’t just whether proponents can jam ObamaCare through Congress with a legislative sleight of hand and on a narrow partisan basis. It is, rather, what would happen next: how the entire political landscape could potentially be upended. But in the case of ObamaCare, it’s perhaps worse for its supporters than abortion or any other hot-button issue — after all, two-thirds of the public disapproves of what they’re doing right now. And that’s before the taxes and the Medicare cuts hit.

On This Week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made this point, vowing that ObamaCare would be the key issue this November:

Every election this fall will be a referendum on this bill. … The benefits don’t kick in for four years. … Just looking at the politics of it there’s nothing but pain here for the next four years. Why in the world would they conclude that would be popular?

Nancy Pelosi doesn’t have the votes now to pass the bill. If she did, they’d have voted already. She may promise that a Senate reconciliation process will “fix” the Senate bill and she may reassure nervous House members that they will “move on” if they finally vote this through. But House members should be wary of both promises. These lines seem to be the latest in a long list of sales pitches from the Democratic leadership, which is obviously willing to sacrifice as many members as needed to pass their “historic” bill.