The Obama administration just rolled out what could be called "version 1.1" of HealthCare.gov, the website set up as a health insurance exchange for Americans who live in states which didn't set up their own state-level exchanges. In the computer world, "version 1.1" normally means "the first bug-fix version" of a piece of software. After two months of nothing short of disaster, the White House is now confident that the website is ready for prime time. Mostly.

The next few weeks will prove them either right or wrong. But the interesting thing (if the website does work well) is that the political conversation may soon shift to a debate we should rightfully have had three or four years ago, but which has never adequately taken place: arguing the relative benefits and drawbacks of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the proper name of "Obamacare"), rather than the endless strawman arguments that have flooded the discussion from the get-go.

Before we get to all the politics, however, it is worth examining the remaining hurdles which must be cleared before HealthCare.gov (ver. 1.1) can be realistically called a success. December is going to be a critical month for the site, both in generating results and in the public's perception. Part of the problem with both of these is the way the White House decided to release the data. Understandably, they wanted people to take a longer view than the one in the media during the first month of the website's operation. To further this end, they decided to only release the sign-up numbers on a monthly basis (rather than weekly, or some sort of rolling total). To date, we have only had one set of hard data to examine. The October numbers were released in mid-November, and (as expected) they were pretty dismal. The November numbers will be released within a week or two, and they will likely be less dismal but still not very impressive. The website still had major problems throughout November, so this is also to be expected.

In October, a little over 100,000 people successfully signed up for new health insurance via the federal HealthCare.gov site and also through individual state sites (from states which set up their own). There's a leak of November data in the news today which shows (if accurate) that 100,000 people may have signed up through the HealthCare.gov site last month, which would roughly quadruple the number of people who did so in October. Scaling this up, perhaps the final November number (with the individual state data added in) will top 400,000. That's more impressive than the October number, but it's still far short of what is needed for success. Before the website launched, the estimate from a number of sources was that 7,000,000 people needed to sign up for health insurance on the exchanges in the first six months for the marketplace to work as designed. We are now two months in to that six-month period, and only an estimated 500,000 people have signed up. To put this another way, we're one-third of the way through the period and only one-fourteenth of the way towards the goal. What this means is that to hit that goal an average of 1,625,000 people must sign up in each of the remaining four months -- a tall order indeed, when compared to the first two months.

But this is, of course, somewhat of an unfair comparison. In October and November, the website wasn't working well (if at all). So millions of people decided it would be worth waiting until the website was up and running. In addition, many Americans are serial procrastinators, and wouldn't have signed up "until the last minute" anyway. There are two such "last minute" deadlines built into the system. One arrives in December, and the other comes at the end of March (the end of the initial sign-up period). The first is to sign up for health insurance so that you'll be covered on the first of January. The second is to sign up for health insurance by the final deadline so that you won't have to pay a penalty on your 2014 income tax form. The first deadline is important to people who actually have health insurance now and don't want to have any gap in their coverage. The second deadline is more important to the people who don't have health insurance yet, but are putting off actually buying it until the last minute. So there are two built-in "spikes" which should happen (as, indeed, happened in Massachusetts when Romneycare began).

The first of these spikes should be starting right about now. I predicted this traffic spike a few weeks ago, and warned that successfully handling even 50,000 simultaneous users might not be anywhere near enough capacity to meet the spike in demand. The 50,000 number was the original specification for the website, which may have been a very low guess when all the spike traffic is taken into account. The White House is reportedly a little worried about this now, as evidenced by their so-called "soft" rollout of version 1.1 of the website -- President Obama hasn't gone out and confidently invited all and sundry to use the site this week, because they are worried about all the pent-up demand from the two-month wait.

But they have at least come up with a pro-active solution. Whether it works or not is anybody's guess, at this point, but at least there is a built-in safety valve this time around. If the website is being overwhelmed, then everyone at the back of the line will be told to come back later, complete with a system to inform you when you will be at the front of the queue and not the back. This could work well, as anyone who has ever visited a deli can attest. Waiting in line will not require you to sit at your computer, constantly refreshing your screen, but instead being told "come back in X hours" or by an email which informs you "you're now at the front of the line, please log on." The fix may be slightly inelegant (compared to everyone being served at once), but it's a lot better than a frozen screen or an error message. We'll be able to see if this works well or not in the next week or two.

December will be a critical month for the website, one way or another. If the spike is handled well, then the number of people who have signed up will climb fast (even though we won't know that number until mid-January). If not, then Democrats will likely jump ship and join with Republicans to push back the implementation of the individual mandate for a year. This will, obviously, hand the Republicans a gigantic political victory. Not only will the website's woes (both versions 1.0 and 1.1) be a total laughingstock, but Republicans will gain exactly what they tried to shut the government down over -- a one-year extension of the full implementation of Obamacare. The secondary effect of this will be that they'll be able to campaign on it throughout the 2014 midterms, without much evidence to contradict whatever claims they feel like making about the program. Obamacare (at least for the campaign) will be reduced to a cheap laugh line.

On the other hand, if the website starts working well, then the conversation is going to pivot in a big way. Because if they don't have the website troubles to kick around any more, then Republicans are going to move on to picking apart individual aspects of the law itself (they've already shown indications of making this pivot). The stories of people "getting kicked off their insurance" are going to fade (as the same people will now be able to actually see their choices on the website, debunking a lot of the horror stories which have been circulating). But they will be replaced. Republicans have already been actively seeking stories of woe from people unsatisfied with some piece of Obamacare or another, and they will continue these efforts with a passion, well into 2014. They have doubled down on the "Obamacare cannot succeed" position, to be blunt.

But Democrats should take heart -- if the website works well in December -- because this will shift the entire debate onto political ground which isn't just more friendly to them but actually is tilted heavily in their direction. Because this will be the turning point to the discussion about what is actually in Obamacare, as opposed to the boogeyman stories Republicans have been telling for years. Republicans will no longer be able to get away with sweeping statements about how Obamacare will "end civilization as we know it" (or whatever strawman they're peddling), because hard data will soon exist to show this to be the nonsense it always was. Sarah Palin won't get much traction talking about how a "death panel" is going to vote on whether her baby is worthy enough to live or not, because Americans will be able to look around and see that this is nothing short of moose poop.

Republicans will adapt, of course. But they'll be adapting to reality this time. They'll bring up this aspect or that of Obamacare which is not working, and they'll demand it be changed. But they likely won't be talking about a "full repeal" of Obamacare any more, because that would mean denying health insurance to millions who have already signed up for the first time ever. "Repeal" will be replaced with "reform."

Which should be just fine with Democrats. Because there isn't a Democrat alive who would argue the position that "Obamacare is perfect, not a single thing can ever be changed in it." Democrats have always been open to the concept of making Obamacare work better, in fact. They may not agree with Republicans (or even among themselves) what "making Obamacare work better" means, exactly, but the hardline position of "it can't be changed, ever" doesn't even exist within the Democratic Party.

This is why the playing field will shift to one which favors Democrats. Democrats will be able to force Republicans to finally admit that there are good things contained within Obamacare. They've already shown signs of backing down on things like "pre-existing conditions" and children staying on their parents' insurance longer. One by one, the other positive aspects of Obamacare will become non-controversial for the sole reason that Republicans will see how popular they are, and then abruptly stop talking about them. Republicans will be reduced to nitpicking around the edges. Democrats can then feel free to speak of the good things which Obamacare has delivered (with plenty of their own examples to back such statements up), while showing flexibility on serious proposals for positive reform of the law. And if they're feeling feisty, Democrats can compile a list of talking points of all the evil things Republicans have fear-mongered upon in the past few years which have not come to pass.

Republicans are expecting and planning on campaigning on the idea that "Obamacare has failed in every way," but this could morph throughout the year to become "we have to fix these minor problems with Obamacare," which is not nearly as scary. Democrats, however, will have to make their own case as well -- they can't just sit back and ignore the issue. They'll have to repeat the good things about Obamacare at the start of any discussion, and then argue individual parts of the program on the merits. This shouldn't be hard, because this is the debate Democrats have wanted to hold all along. They've been waiting for the air to clear on all the fear-mongering and to discuss actual policy rather than boogeymen. Now will be their chance to finally do so. But since the "Obamacare must not be changed one tiny little bit" caricature of Democrats is a false one, individual Democrats will be able to easily say: "I'm glad that Republicans are finally focusing on positive changes and reforms we can make together, rather than just trying to destroy the law at all costs. I welcome such long-overdue reasonableness, in fact." This could tilt the issue in the 2014 campaign in a big way.

Of course, this assumes that version 1.1 of the Obamacare website has actually fixed the problems and that the site works well throughout December -- which is a fairly large assumption to make, at this point. Time will tell.

-- Chris Weigant

Cross-posted at The Huffington Post

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

First off, let's get our holiday schedule out of the way. Today, as you've already noticed, we're not having a full column. We were working on one, but the research got a bit daunting and nobody's going to read it tomorrow anyway, so we're setting it aside for now (the subject will come up again, the column was inspired by the news that the Supreme Court is going to take up a "religious freedom/corporate personhood" question with regard to birth control insurance -- so look for the full column when the oral arguments are made, in a few months).

Tomorrow, we will be eating turkey with all the trimmings, so there will be no column at all. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Friday, we may drag ourselves to the keyboard for a Friday column, but right now the forecast leans more toward lying on the couch, so we'll just have to see. Maybe you'll get a full Friday Talking Points, and maybe you'll get a re-run of a column from Thanksgivings past, who knows?

One other unrelated note is that our thoughts will be going out to one of the CW.com commenting family this year. Last year, Chris1962 was hit hard by Hurricane Sandy, so we certainly hope that a year's time has allowed her to rebuild and have some things to be thankful for which were swept away last year. We haven't heard from her in a while, so we hope she's been busy rebuilding and recovering from the storm.

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It is ridiculously early to start talking about the 2014 midterm elections. I realize that, really I do. But we've got to start sometime, and it's always amusing, months later, to look back on my unfulfilled prophecies, so this column will be that sort of blue-sky speculation (just to warn everyone, up front).

The 2014 midterms are, right now, pretty much of an open book. Nobody (including me) can accurately predict what is going to happen in the election, and there is always the possibility of some catastrophe happening between then and now which will suck the political oxygen out of the race to the point where other issues pale in importance. A year is, after all, a long time in politics.

But having said all of that, and barring any unforeseen gigantic issues on the horizon, we can at least look at what both parties have to play around with in the campaign. One side in particular is already telegraphing what will occupy the center stage of their campaign platform. It's not even really "guesswork" to state now that Republicans will be placing Obamacare at the center of their efforts. Figuring out the Democratic strategy is a bit harder, though.

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Millions of Americans will travel home for Thanksgiving this year, and millions of the same Americans will get into heated political discussions at some point during the festivities. Most of these political discussions will wind up convincing nobody, because the whole point of them is (at heart) to casually ridicule other members of your family -- you could just as easily tease each other about who you went to the prom with or some other event from your past. The net result is the same. Liberals will travel to heartland towns and be called tree-hugging bleeding hearts (or worse) and conservatives will travel to cosmopolitan settings and be called heartless hicks and hayseeds (or worse), and everyone will then happily decamp to the living room to watch football.

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This was a big week in the political world, so we've got a lot to get through before we get to the big, explosive "nuclear option" story. In fact, it was even a big week just for political anniversaries. Fifty years ago this week, an event of no little importance happened. I speak, of course, tomorrow's 50th anniversary of the first broadcast of Doctor Who by the BBC.

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Today was a momentous day in the United States Senate, as filibuster rules were changed in the first major way since the 1970s. I'm not going to write about the direct fallout of this extraordinary action, since I did so yesterday and plan on doing so tomorrow as well. Instead, I'd like to take today to point out a (so far) little-noticed secondary consequence of Harry Reid's historic vote. Because if the early reports are correct in stating that confirmations will be filibuster-free not just for "non-Supreme Court" judicial nominees but also for high-ranking executive branch nominees, then it clears the path for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to tender her resignation.

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There's an old adage in politics that the way to win political struggles is to "bring a gun to a knife fight." If this imagery isn't violent enough for you, the subject on the table now is whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is considering what is called the "nuclear option." If bringing a gun wins a knife fight, then I guess dropping a "nuke" would pretty much obliterate the opposition. Which is why the term "nuclear option" was coined in the first place -- to show what a radical move it would be.

Specifically, "going nuclear" means a vote in the Senate to change the rules by which the chamber operates under. This doesn't seem all that controversial at first, but the reason it is seen as such a drastic measure is that the vote would be a straight majority vote -- 51 votes would win (or even 50, with Joe Biden casting a tie-breaker). Traditionally, the Senate has only changed its rules by supermajority votes, or on the first day of their session (which won't happen again until January of 2015).

So far, it hasn't happened. Instead, what might be called "nuclear deterrence" has worked. Merely threatening to "go nuclear" has been sufficient to make the opposition party back down, usually after some "Gang Of (insert number)" group hashes out a détente of sorts. This time, however, this doesn't appear to be a viable route.

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It seems to be time for another round of threatening "the nuclear option" in the Senate, but before we get into the details, it's worth providing a bit of context. I wrote this article back in May, and not much has changed since then. There was one brief week where Democrats walked right up to the nuclear trigger and Republicans backed down and allowed Richard Cordray to be approved by the Senate, but immediately afterwards the Republicans started blocking everyone again, and the three seats on the D.C. Circuit Court remain unfilled. President Obama has named three candidates, and all three have been blocked in the last few weeks by Republicans in the Senate once again. While this round of brinksmanship is just beginning, the fight over the judges has been going on for a while. Which is why this article deserves reading now -- to set the stage for the upcoming battle.

Originally published May 28, 2013

In one of their stunning (but regular) "up is down" leaps of illogic, the Republican Party is charging President Obama with "court-packing." In reality, they're just miffed that a Democrat is going to exercise his constitutional authority to appoint judges in the regular order of things. To call such actions "court-packing" is nothing short of laughable, to be blunt. In fact, the only hinkey business afoot is coming from Republicans themselves on the issue.

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I have to begin by saying that I don't really enjoy playing this game, but so many in the inside-the-Beltway chattering class are getting so obsessed with it of late that (against my better intentions) I'm going to reluctantly jump into the fray. Mostly because one metaphor seems to have been ignored by everyone so far, and I think it deserves at least a bit of consideration.

The parlor game of which I speak could be called "match the scandal." The rules are simple: pick a scandal from days gone by and make a comparison to the current scandal unfolding in the news. This time around, the question appears to be: "What can be easily likened to the Obamacare website rollout disaster?" The favored answer so far seems to be: "It's Obama's Katrina!" But I don't think you need to look back even that far -- I think Obama's own previous experience gives a much more useful metaphor for pundits to casually bat around while waiting for the announcement from the White House that the website is (mostly) fixed. Because, to me at least, the last two months are reminiscent of nothing more than watching the seemingly-endless gusher of oil erupt from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, after the Deepwater Horizons drilling rig exploded and caused the BP oil spill.

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Let's see, what happened last week?

Well, of course, there was lots of Obamacare news, but since most Democrats are pretty sick of hearing about it at this point, we're going to once again largely ignore it today. After pointing out one story which was strangely ignored in the pile-on in the media this week. It seems the profits for the company contracted to build the Obamacare site are way up. How nice for them, eh? Sigh.

Seriously, though, if you want to read my thoughts on Obama's presser yesterday, or my warning of a possible upcoming disaster on the website, please feel free to do so. But two columns (in what was essentially a four-day week) is enough on the subject for now, I think. Also, we've devoted a whole lot of talking points to the issue for the past two months, so we're going to instead offer up a rant this week on a different subject.

While it's hard to see, if all your news sources are of the mainstream variety, there were indeed other political stories happening this week.

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