I mean, obviously it’s going to mess up Joe Biden’s life: he’s the Vice President of the administration who turned the roll-out of the single most iconic representation of the progressive/liberal concept of big government into a prolonged rake-stepping session. And just as obviously it’s going to mess up Hillary Clinton’s life, too: she’s the woman who brought the rake in the first place. Remember: that individual mandate? All Hillary Clinton’s idea.
But I digress. Anyway, that’s the executive branch more or less blighted by this law; and even if there were any credible 2016 Democratic candidates among the legislature they’d all be tainted by President Obama’s Happy Shiny Fun-Time Healthcare Debacle by now anyway. But what of the governors? Surely one or two of them remains… unspoiled.
Heh. Turns out Obamacare’s up to the challenge:
Maryland officials decided Friday to delay the rollout of the small-business insurance exchange program until April so it can continue fixing problems with marylandhealthconnection.gov, its new online marketplace.
Maryland launched the exchange on Oct. 1 for uninsured individuals, and had planned to open it to small companies in January.
Much like the federal insurance website HealthCare.gov, Maryland’s website suffered from technical problems that initially forced many navigators – people trained to help others sign up for coverage — to use paper applications. The exchange’s troubles come as a surprise because the state’s Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley started working to put the 2010 Affordable Care Act into practice in Maryland shortly after it was enacted.
Although O’Malley should be grateful, really: now we have something that will allow him to be told apart from all the other colorless, ferociously uninteresting Democratic governors out there. He’s the guy who screwed up the state exchange with all the big advantages, coming in.
2016 is going to be a whale of a campaign, huh? Cannot. Wait.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
Funny thing is if you read the pundits, it 2006 again with Clinton being inevitable and bestest candidate evah! Story lines.
Living in Portland as I do, I’ve already seen a couple of “I’m ready for HILLARY!” bumper stickers. Makes me want to add a sticker saying, “Couldn’t you be ready for someone who’s actually competent?”
We’ve got history on our side: since Abraham Lincoln was President, there have not been two different Democrats that won consecutive elections as President where the first one didn’t die in office. It’s obviously no guarantee, but it goes to show how hard it is for one Democratic President to get another elected.
We had history on our side in Virginia too, and we lost.
Brian Schweitzer. He isn’t a Governor now, so he hasn’t expanded Medicaid or set up a state exchange, and he was highly critical of the law when it was being crafted. He fully embraced Single-Payer when Baucus was making Ocare.
He might not play well among some Dems for being pro-gun, and pro-keystone, but being a proponent of Single Payer could carry him through the primaries.
He’s both very possibly dirty and he said some unfortunate things about polygamist ancestry that may burn him in the 2016 primaries.
I recall both Obama and Hillary both being “very possibly dirty”. (Not to mention Kerry, Gore, and Clinton before them.)
I’ve seen no evidence that Dem primary voters care.
The media certainly doesn’t.
.
I also don’t believe he’ll lose many (if any) Democratic votes for teeing off on Mormons.
He almost certainly gained stature in the party for it.
Yes, it was low, unfair, and all the rest. Most of the Democratic coalition doesn’t much like religion to begin with, and harbor a special hatred towards the LDS religion in particular for daring to contribute to the success of Prop. 8 in California.
You’ll note that Kerry, Hillary, and Gore all *lost*. 🙂 Schweitzer doesn’t have Obama’s exoticism and he certainly doesn’t have Bill Clinton’s charisma; the way he passed up that Senate seat raised eyebrows.
I didn’t say it would help in the general.
But it’s not going to hurt in the primary. His major problem there is out-and-out Leftists who’d like to run Warren.
Well, I’ll be honest here: I expect it’ll be Biden who will get the nomination anyway. He’s the only Democratic candidate with any pretensions to having a personality.
He has those weird Western ties. That’s kind of exotic. At least for Leftists.
After 2012 when O’bama should have lost I’m not taking anything for granted. History is lost we are in a new era. “The voice of the Turtle is heard in our land”.