Democratic leaders met Thursday to work on a way forward with health care reform. Even though there is a growing concensus in the caucus around using a reconciliation sidecar strategy to pass the Senate bill along with a set of fixes, it looks like the leadership is not yet firmly behind the idea.

Perhaps more interesting was the discussion about whether Dems should try to pass reform using reconciliation. There is a concern that the maneuver will be viewed by the public as an attempt to change the rules mid-game, which could hurt Democrats politically, the source said. And reconciliation would require the same kind of dealmaking that Democrats used to pass the Senate bill — deals like the so-called Cornhusker Kickback that further soured the public on reform. It’s a concern that moderate Democrats have expressed for weeks, especially as many Americans view the Massachusetts election as a repudiation of health reform.

The fear that it looks like Democrats are “changing the rules mid-game” are silly. After all, only 26% of the country even knows a a silly 60-vote rule exists at all. I simply do not believe that 98% of Americans care about vote counts. Does anyone remember the vote count for Medicare, how about the Bush tax cuts? Even if using reconciliation could be spun as “cheating,” I suspect most American would prefer a party of tough, hardball-playing cheaters who win, compared to rule-following, wimpy losers. I don’t think people will care about the “rule changing” if (and only if) it is seen as a way to do something positive for the American people, and a way to stand up to the special interests. If it is seen as away to sneak more corrupt giveaways through Congress, it will be deadly to the party.

The second issue, about deal cutting, should be the real worry. The current reconciliation package being discussed can easily be picked apart, and rumors are that even more politically toxic deals might make their way into the package. I can’t imagine how you sell a reconciliation measure without using it to add a big popular idea like Medicare buy-in or completely take out all the unpopular ideas like the excise tax and the individual mandate.

When will Democrats learn that the special deals they get to win favor with a few hundred people in their districts are crushing the popularity of the party across the board? The only thing that will help the Democrats now is going populist–for real–and standing up for all the regular Americans against unpopular special interests like the insurance companies.