I forget what I was going to write about this, but the quote itself is pretty relevant.
Understanding the politics of the president’s health care law has never been complicated. It was barely passed through Congress despite huge Democratic majorities in 2009, became the driving force behind the GOP’s takeover of the House in 2010, and again was the leading issue Republicans campaigned on to retake the Senate in 2014. Nearly 15,000 advertisements aired about Obamacare in the last week of last year’s midterms, and94 percent of the messaging was negative. One week later, Republicans won nine Senate seats and netted their largest House majority since the 1920s. For Republicans, it has been the political gift that keeps on giving.
Yet even though public opinion remains unfavorable towards the law, Democrats remain in denial about its political standing.
And how it’s going to be standing – or probably leaning – next year. The populace is not really going to have the nuanced view of the issue that both Democratic and Republican partisans have*; they’re just going to know that their health care coverage keeps getting worse and worse. And it’s increasingly unlikely that the Democrats will ever be able to figure out how to get the Republicans to share the blame on that.
Moe Lane
*Do you think that the GOP Establishment is perhaps a bit more willing to campaign on Obamacare than it is to break it on the wheel? Congratulations: you have a nuanced view of Obamacare. The American voting public does not.
The GOP Establishment has no intention of ever touching Obamacare. And they believe that they can lie again in the next campaign about it and fool us again. We will see if there is such a campaign and if they succeed again. I have my doubts.
I would modify this *slightly*.
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Plenty of GOP campaigns ran against Obamacare in 2010 and 2014 ..
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One *specific* GOP campaign did *NOT* run against Obamacare in 2012.
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My view may be nuanced, but it is also *very* pointed.
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Mew
The best observations usually are. Be careful with them, you can cut yourself.
I disagree in part with the blockquote. The Democrats are not in denial about the standing of Obamacare. But the surviving ones by definition* represent districts or states that support (or tolerate) it, so they are content.
So the Republicans run against it where it polls poorly, but Obamacare is a government-insurance company partnership intended to enrich the latter; it’s hard to believe anyone in government will honestly try to kill it.
* if they didn’t represent such a district there has been ample opportunity to turf them out.