“An albatross! With great big HUUUUUGE wings. Oh Delores…”

Another reminder that #Obamacare hasn’t stopped being a Democratic albatross.

Hey, remember when Democrats thought that Obamacare wouldn’t still be an issue by Election Day? – And by that I mean Election Day, 2010. Turns out, not so much:

…in the political battle over Obamacare, now in its fifth smash year, the news [that Obama was unilaterally ignoring parts of the employer mandate] was one more indication that the front has moved to the next presidential election and beyond to the incoming administration.

The law “will be on the front burner in Washington and in every Republican campaign through 2016,” predicts Patrick Davis, a GOP consultant in Colorado.

That election likely will mark the fourth straight election cycle in which the ACA is a major issue, if not the central issue—an eternity in politics. Call it Obama’s Forever War.

Continue reading Another reminder that #Obamacare hasn’t stopped being a Democratic albatross.

#rsrh Democrats cannot hope for Obama primary challenge.

That’s what Jay Cost thinks, and he’s got five good reasons why he thinks that: Obama’s access to money, the White House, Democratic client groups, African-American voters, and the Democratic party establishment. Whether this is ‘fortunate’ or not depends on whether you’re looking forward to either having to defend Democratic policies since 2007, or whether you’re gleefully anticipating rolling those policies into a nice, thick roll and using them to beat at the heads and shoulders of Democratic politicians, all the way down to the county commissioner level.

Guess which camp I’m in.

More seriously, if the Democrats want this guy gone then they’re going to have to convince President Obama that he needs to be the first President since LBJ to not run for re-election. And the odds of that happening are are just short of nil, of course – so I don’t know what the netroots’/progressives’ Plan C is going to be, here. Complain, whine, and get entertainingly cross and querulous about having to live with the consequences of their actions, I guess. They seem to default to that anyway.

Moe Lane

The headline some of you thought you’d never see. #rsrh

Mind you, I always thought that we would, although I guessed that it’d take about 20 months to show up, not 12.

“GOP to tie Obama to Dem candidates.”

Isn’t it pretty? More:

The challenge will be to link Democrats with the administration on such issues as spending, bailouts, healthcare and cap-and-trade while not personally attacking Obama, who remains personally well-liked even as his standing erodes. So, at least in purple states or districts, don’t expect to see an ad where the faces of Democratic candidates are morphed into that of the president—a time-honored approach from past campaigns.

But Republicans are unmistakably enthusiastic – and downright giddy in some cases – about the prospect of Democrats stumping with the president in their states, a vivid reminder about how starkly different the political landscape seems now than when Obama took office.

Thus, expect a lot of the President being lumped in with such… iconic… Democrats as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, John Murtha, and Al Franken (add your own favorite clown, crook, or creep, of course). Which suggests that there’s an interesting counter-move for this administration…

Moe Lane

Michael Barone: Charlie Rangel not yet albatross*.

(Via Instapundit) Contra Michael Barone (who I both like and respect), there’s a simpler answer to the question of why Speaker Pelosi hasn’t cut Charlie Rangel loose yet: by Democratic standards, he’s not particularly corrupt. We are after all talking about a political party whose collective inability to pay their taxes became the first national political joke of 2009.

That being said, Barone’s point that Rangel’s replacement would be problematical for the Democrats is well-taken. Just imagine Pete Stark as Ways & Means Chair, for example. It’d be like Christmas had come early.

Moe Lane

*The albatross was only a problem after they shot it, remember?

Crossposted to RedState.