I think they got hammered for a number of reasons, most of which we’ve been over in other threads. Again IMHO, they got hammered because:
It was passed without bipartisan support. The public isn’t stupid - when they see even the Maine senators voting against it…
It looked as though it was passed through bribes and an underhanded process (Kansas and Lousiana payoffs, Reid’s secrecy, ‘Deem and Pass’, etc). You NEVER want to pass bigtime laws that way.
It is portrayed as more government intrusion into the largest segment of our economy, either 1/6 or 1/7 of GDP, depending on how you add it up
It used up all of our would-be entitlement savings to provide for yet another entitlement, instead of using those savings to save our ridunkulously bad budget situation
Whether this stuff is all true or a figment of the right-wing media’s working the refs or whatever is completely besides the point. But I believe that this is what the public believes - at least, this is what independent voters, who hammered the Dems last week, believe.
Which is why the OP is tilting at windmills. But it’s an interesting conversation.
Bipartisan does not mean do everything we say or else, which was what the opposition were loudly proclaiming. In fact I would say the presidents insistence on giving the bill any semblance of the vaunted “bipartisanship” resulted in a piece of legislation that even his supporters were and still are unhappy about.
What you label as intrusion I would call a legitimate government roll, namely to ensure that its citizen aren’t left to die or incur bankrupting debt when they fall ill. If a government in the so called developed world can’t provide all of its citizens with adequate healthcare what good is it for?
As for not letting people die or be permanently disabled because that would offend some notion of increasing entitlements, anyone who professes such sentiment should be called out for the callousness and shear ignorance it reveals.
The bottom line is this. The democrats were unlikely to hold on to all of their seats, given electoral history and if the state of the economy serves as any guide. But I hold that democrats incurred further losses by failing to enthuse its base supporters and ensuring their vote, while simultaneously letting the republicans capture the narrative theme for the election.
Absolutely dead wrong. This year there were several prominent races with females running. At least some of them degenerated into sexist attacks. If the candidate did not respond to the attack, they worked and she suffered a hit in the polls. If the candidate did respond forcefully calling it out as sexist bullshit, the ads backfired and hurt the person doing the attack.
Or look at the Paul/Conway thing. Paul took the aqua buddha stuff personally, and got pissed. And he responded like someone who was pissed off about it. He also got a bump in the polls and the entire thing backfired on Conway. Contrast that to Obama, he never really responded to the Muslim crap and two years later it’s still a common attack line and it still works (among some people) even though it’s totally untrue.
Or another example. When papa bush was in office, some reporter got special permission and interviewed him in the Oval Office. They questioned him about an alleged affair. Bush got pissed, his response was along the lines of “How dare you sit here in the dignity of the Oval Office of the White House and ask me that?” Contrast that to how Clinton responded when he was under fire.
When attacked, respond. If the attack is outrageous, be outraged in your response. It makes political good sense, and it’s a perfectly reasonable reaction anyway. Although it can be taken too far. Acting outraged at something that wasn’t outrageous generally doesn’t help much.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, I was thinking more in the vein of more ridiculous accusations such as being socialist and the like, excellent points though.
Agree. The John Kerry/Swift Boat accusations are a perfect example of this. He tried taking the high road and just ignoring these guys. The accusations caught fire, though, and by the time he did anything about it, it was too little, too late.
He has responded to the Muslim stuff, but some people just won’t be swayed, my in-laws included, who also believe he was born in Kenya (and they even voted for the guy).
Obviously you can believe what you want, but I think you are pretty far divorced from reality. I know that the Obamabots have been spinning the election as standard operating procedure for a midterm, as the fact that they didn’t 'splain Obamacare good enough, that the inhabitants of dumbfuckistan are completely stupid not to realize a good thing. They (and you, if you believe what you post here) are fooling themselves.
And when you say this
You are espousing a position that takes an extreme (citizen left to die in the cold, which doesn’t happen, by the way, under the current system) and tries to justify oh so much more (the aforementioned Obamacare). You might think it’s a legit gov role but many Americans, most even, are skeptical about a yet larger government footprint into their lives, and the downstream fiscal disaster it would bring upon us. That was the theme that basically birthed the Tea Party, despite the Dems’ efforts to portray them all as racist, gun-toting whackjobs.
Again, greater Government entitlements and the higher taxes to pay for them is not in line with most Americans’ vision. The poles have been consistently against Obamacare. It wasn’t the only reason the Dems got their asses kicked, but it was a useful symbol of an agenda gone awry.
If you’re for introducing a nationalized health insurance plan like other industrialized nations then the last thing you should be doing is defending Obamacare. That’s an awful plan that will be disastrous and is pretty much going the opposite way. Basically a bailout for big insurance.
Now I can see why the big boys would defend such a thing, but why a Dem or lib online would want to defend Romneycare taken national is beyond me.
Obamabots? Obamacare? Interesting that you should make use of these epitaphs, no doubt first coined by some Rovian politnik the better to feed the republican propaganda machine.
You further suggest that Democrats view the electorate as “inhabitants of dumbfuckistan” and the opposition as “racist, gun-toting whackjobs” revealing another canard of the right, namely the disconnected elitist Democrat.
As for the self-styled teabaggers, it would be hard to find a more apparent attempt at a fake grass roots movement, you can practically see the GOP arm sticking out from the back.
Nevertheless these and other deceits have netted republicans some success and it’s about time that they not go unchallenged, they must be checked at every turn by the president and his supporters. The starting pistol for the presidential election 2012 and beyond has been sounded.
have been consistently against Obamacare. It wasn’t the only reason the Dems got their asses kicked, but it was a useful symbol of an agenda gone awry.