Y’know, I’m starting to think you have nothing to worry about on this front. I’m beginning to believe that’s exactly what you’ll see. I believe that most people can see that the Republicans seem to be all about obstructionism, stopping effective government in it’s tracks. I think that proposing changes/funding for access to abortion, denying gay marriage etc, is too harsh for some Republicans who maybe like to talk the party line, but come down to it, they may have a gay friend or two, or know someone who found access to abortion a blessing in their lives. They themselves may disagree with these things, but come down to it, I don’t think they’ll truly vote that way.
The Republicans seem most likely to ratchet up the political theatre and Romney seems likely to get caught flip flopping some more. The Republicans have no dignity left, it seems to me. Whereas Obama seems to have it in spades. It’s sort of like the gulf between GW’s premature posturing and ‘mission accomplished’ vs President Obama’s dignified announcement.
I think that difference is one that people can almost feel viscerally. And I think the president stands to gain large from the effect.
I don’t know how much Obama’s campaign donations increased yesterday but…
*Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has raised $4.2 million since the Supreme Court ruled President Obama’s healthcare law is constitutional.
…Romney’s campaign had raised $2.5 million by 1:33 p.m. Thursday.*
The American people still don’t know what Obamacare is about. Clairification of what is in the bill and how it will effect everyone has been slow in coming. How many months has it been since the bill was signed into law? Simply claiming that “Obamacare will be good for you” doesn’t give the taxpaying voter a warm fuzzy feeling.
The other consideration is that the Obamacare “mandate” is now the Obamacare “TAX”. Historically, the taxpaying voter doesn’t like any new tax and they don’t like the politicians that impose them. The SCOTUS said that the money-grabbing part of Obamacare is constitutional under Congresses “ability to tax”. The courts referring to this as a penalty doesn’t negate the fact that it’s a tax.
Boy, doorhinge, you sure seem upset that Marco Rubio was able to squeeze in “tax” so many times on TV yesterday - you know you don’t have to try to catch him, right?
We do see the formation of the next big lie though - the idea that the mandate penalty will somehow tax everyone rather than just the handful of people that choose to go without insurance. Obama (and his surrogates) need to be very forceful about that - you only pay the tax if you choose to be a freeloader and a moocher.
As to the money, I don’t think anybody is surprised that Mitt Romney is able to raise a lot of money to oppose UHC. Why that money would trust him to actually repeal it is a bit beyond me, but maybe if they spend enough on his campaign his current position on individual mandates will stick.
It will be very interesting to watch the polls over the next week, both horse-race and any polls that come out about the ACA.
Not really. That poll is 2 years old, and all it asks is if people want more free stuff than the original plan. It doesn’t ask if they are willing to pay for the additional stuff.
The decision will be glibly interpreted as a win for Obama. The GOP’s “Obamacare tax” angle is easily interpreted as the whining of losers. As General Patton said (or maybe just George C. Scott), “Americans love a winner and wil not tolerate a loser.”
The American public will reflexively scrabble for simple reasons justifying the loss, and “shamelessly obstructionist GOP” fits the bill to a T. It may not be completely fair, and defenders can write all the blog posts they want crying about it, but the fact is the more the GOP talks about it, the more it will damage their electoral chances substantially. Nobody wants to vote for a loser.
The OP question was, “What’s the electoral impact of the Supreme Court upholding the Affordable Care Act?”
I didn’t mention Rubio by name or hear his interview/stump speech but I’m sure that the term “Obamacare Tax” will be heard a lot more in the future.
FYI - If you would submit an estimate of the number of times that I may use the term “TAX” in any future post, I’ll be gald to give it all the consideration I believe it is due.
You were right out the gate with the “Obamacare Tax” phrase yesterday, and are still playing it up heavily today. Marco Rubio did the same in a TV appearance yesterday. I appreciate staying on script, but I’m not sure double-shame-naming is going to work - “Obamacare” itself lost a bit of it’s luster as an insult when CJ Roberts upheld it.
Maybe if they worked “job-killing” into it. The “job-killing Obamacare tax”… I could dance to that.
And to point the finger at myself - I was quick to call it a “freeloader/moocher tax” and it looks like that’s exactly what Axelrod called it today. We shall see which frame wins, I suppose.
It will be an issue, only if the Republicans continue to harp on it. For most Americans when the Supreme Court rules it is time to move on. If they concentrate on this and not on jobs and the economy then Obama will steamroll them on it. I think the repeal “Obamacare” theme is not going to go over well for Romney, especially when he said Romneycare should be used throughout the US.
When all is said and done it shouldn’t have major impact, if the Republicans are smart.
It’s a plus for Obama - all we have to do is to think about the Republican reaction if it had gotten ruled against.
And Romney is about the worst candidate the Republicans could have chose on this issue. We have the clip of Romney talking about how a mandate is absolutely essential. One of his people, confronted by CNN about it, could just say “well it is different at the state level.”
Two years ago there was a ton of FUD. Most people have noticed, as the law if going into effect, how no federal agents stand between them and their doctors.
But I agree that a big publicity effort is required to combat the lies we can expect to see.
Of course. Hardly anyone mentions the Gore v Bush election decision or the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling.
The GOP will make their own decisions about what to campaign on as will the DNC. Both will try to entice the independent voter to their cause. Neither side will take into consideration what the “other” party thinks they should be running on.
Surely Gingrich would have been even worse? After all, he’s the one who originally proposed a plan like this at the federal level. Romney at least has the rationalization of “it’s different for a state”; Gingrich doesn’t even have that.
There’s a tiny nugget of truth in this lie; Roberts did Obama no favors by calling the ACA a tax. That’s the club that the Republicans will beat him with until November – “Obama raised taxes” (it would be interesting to see if they can find a living American whose taxes have gone up since 2008).
To the Republicans, that’s practically the Word of God Gospel Truth.
*Q: President Obama, is the individual mandate a tax?
A: Well, my position on that is evolving.
Q: Governor Romney, what is your alternative to the ACA?
A: Romney: If we want to get rid of Obamacare, we need to replace Obama*
I find it interesting that the Romney soundbite avoids the obvious follow-up clause that we need to “get rid of Obama”. Maybe makes it sound like a call to violence…?
I’m afraid that’s a mistake on Romney’s part. He doesn’t have to worry so much about getting votes from the GoP base. If he wants to win, he needs to appeal to swing voters, and I don’t think “Repeal Obamacare” is going to do that.
You could be right. But this is all the minor leagues. We step up to the majors in September, so I’d wait until then to pass judgement on the campaign message. If the jobs reports continue to look bad, he can forget about “Obamacare” and go for the jugular.
If you ask people if they support what is in the law (extending parents health insurance until their kid is 26, regulating health insurance companies, fines for employers who don’t cover employees, comparative effectiveness, trying to lower medical costs over time, closing the donut hole in medicare, abolishing pre-existing conditions, subsidies for people to buy insurance, making it easier to comparison shop insurance, mandating insurance companies spend a minimum 80% of funds on health care, end recissions, end lifetime caps, etc) then polls show 70-80% of people support that. The only fairly unpopular idea is the mandate (which is necessary for the law though).
But wrap all those ideas together in one bill, label it ‘Obamacare’ and suddenly the polls show only 50% of people support it.
Most people, pro and con, don’t know what is in the law and are likely just responding to the politics surrounding the law. I’m not an expert and only have an amateur understanding of the 1000+ page law, but I’m sure even with that I know more about it than 90% of people who have an opinion on it. About 70% of the public can’t name a single supreme court justice, but they have really strong opinions on what happens there too. Mostly it is politics, not policy that goes into these polls.
