Well, it’s not like they have many options left at this point:
Scarred by years of Republican attacks over Obamacare, with more in store next year, Democrats have settled on an unlikely strategy for the 2014 midterms: Bring it on.
Party strategists believe that embracing the polarizing law — especially its more popular elements — is smarter politics than fleeing from it in the House elections. The new tack is a marked shift from 2010, when Republicans pointed to Obamacare as Exhibit A of big government run amok on their way to seizing the House from Democrats.
That’s… not precisely true, by the way. It’s sort of incomplete: while ‘big government run amok’ was certainly a central theme of the 2010 elections, it doesn’t explain why Republicans were able to capitalize on it. When you think about it, honestly, big government is not exactly a problem that only rises up when one party is in office. Both parties are guilty: in 2010, one party got spanked and the other got all of those wonderfully troublesome new legislators joining their ranks. Why is that?
It’s because the Democrats apparently have never really understood that the way that Obamacare was passed features prominently in the reason why it’s so unpopular among the rest of us. Politico’s vaguely revisionist history aside, the Democrats certainly attempted to tout Obamacare as being a net positive in the 2010 elections; what they failed to realize then – and, apparently, now – is that when you shove something down my throat, I don’t particularly care whether you think that it tastes great or not. What I care about is your callous indifference and unwarranted arrogance; and so it was with Obamacare. The Democrats ignored the opposition, ignored the populace, and even ignored the established rules to pass their walking monstrosity of a health care rationing system*; and it is a measure of precisely how tone-deaf they were about the procedure that one of their leaders actually thought that it was smart to tell people that we had to pass the bill to find out what was in it.
But that’s the past; what’s happening in the present is that… Democrats apparently still think it’s all going to be OK if they can just somehow put the right spin on the results. If the Democratic party really wanted to get past Obamacare, then the Democrats whould be: admitting that they had acted abominably in passing Obamacare in the way that they did, and that the Members of Congress who got tossed out on their ears as a result deserved their fate; promising to support a veto-proof repeal of Obamacare, in exchange for the passage of mutually-acceptable and popular provisions; and publicly repudiating Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for their horrifically flawed leadership.None of this will of course happen, which is equally of course the Democrats’ prerogative. But it also handily demonstrates to people just how invested the Democratic party is in this particular narrative of failure.
Such a pity.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
Via
Great News !!!! … Politico: “Democrats’ 2014 strategy: Own Obamacare” is.gd/Jc6p1l
— Joe Pounder (@PounderFile) June 4, 2013
*By the way: no Republican voted for Obamacare. There is not a single GOP signature on the final bill. Not one. This is all the Democrats’ fault.
Dems can’t ignore one thing (they can hope Republicans ignore it) – Obamacare, in a political goofup only the Democrats are capable off, puts the biggest knife in the one group mostly responsible for Obama’s election: young, healthy voters i.e. the dudes who are now seeing dramatic increases in their insurance coverage, now that they are exiting the freeloading years. To them I say, VOTE YOU FLIPPING INTEREST and not one single member of the GOP (not even Lamar!, not even John Lindsay McAmnesty) voted for Obamacare. To Dems, well Obama doesn’t care about you, he already got elected twice, it’s your problem now.
Oreos are less appealing when they’re being shoved in your mouth*.
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That said, the Dems are convinced they can’t break ranks on this .. and they may be right. Doing so would tear their coalition party apart as the hard left go even further into bat-guano crazy. Thing is, that’s gonna happen anyway .. and by postponing it, they’re just ensuring the bad blood lingers.
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Not that I see this as a *problem*, mind.
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Mew
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* Futurama reference .. can’t find clip.
It was the Futurama episode where Fry goes to Robot Prison after he and Bender are set up to take the fall for a bank robbery by Roberto.
Untrue. Fry does like having disks crammed into him, but only if they’re Oreos, and even then, only in the mouth.*
I am corrected, zamoose. Thank you.
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Mew
tnfriend loves chocolate ice cream with milky way bars but I don’t like chocolate ice cream forced down my throat by a shovel and then taking the shovel and beat me over the head with it. The latter is Democrats “wanting to help”. I am reminded of this gentleman in moments like this…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhYJS80MgYA
If the Democrats want to tie their fortunes to ObamaCare, well, good luck with that. It’ll make our jobs in 2014 that much easier.
There is some hay to be made by pointed out the effect of the new taxes on certain groups:
Parents: The prices of your children’s bracers has just gone up because they are medical devices subject to an additional 2.3% Obamacare tax.
Pet owners: Your already high vet bills just went up because any medical device used to treat your pets are subject to an additional 2.3% Obamacare tax.
People covered by a policy from an health insurance company: We were forced to raise your premiums due to new Obamacare taxes on our company.
I am sure that we who read political blogs are upset that a revenue bill originated in the Senate after Reid lost his 60th vote but many voters will find it easier to understand the ways the Unaffordable Care Act affects their pocket book. Even low information voters can readily grasp that new taxes on medical and insurance revenue – not profits – has to drive up their costs. People will remember their increased premiums in 2014 and may be deciding upon their benefit packages for 2015.
Granting that I am a suspicious soul. Some would say paranoid [noting that you are not paranoid if they really are out to get you]. I wonder if there are deeper levels involved here.
Normally, such a stand would be political suicide. However, politics based on elections have an implicit assumption that the elections are honest and reflect the real will of the voters.
The Democrats have a large portion of the electoral system under their control, with fraud being the norm. What if they believe that they can overcome the wrath of voters with fraud, and then claim that they have a mandate for Obamacare and everything else they have been caught doing?
Just sayin’
I think their gambit is to hit the low information voters and say that,” they’re trying to take away your free stuff!!!” and try to mobilize them like ’12.
Actually a combination does make more sense. We know they use vote fraud massively, and we know that their low information base, when turned out, outnumber the producers. Unlike their one-note foreign policy [damage the interests of the United States at every opportunity]; seizing power and crushing any opposition brings out their creativity unencumbered by any morals.