Saturday, June 30, 2012

Obama’s Swing-Voter Victory

The dust is still settling from Thursday's ruling on what the Republicans and Mitt "Liar-n-Chief" Romney derogatorily call Obamacare.   While the ruling will keep the delusional tin foil hat wearing Tea Party crowd energized, the big question is whether with the ACA's constitutionality now decided, swing voters will become sufficiently educated on the act to realize that many of them should like the various provisions of the act.  And with health care premiums continuing to soar, if costs are not contained, they will be paying much more for less without ACA.  Obama needs to hammer on this point and the fact that the GOP has no proposal of how they'd replace "Obamacare."  Repeal does nothing to  address the problem.  I hope that Obama and the Democrats hit home on this every time the GOP dredges up Obamacare ovver the four months.  A column in The Daily Beast looks at how continuing to harp on Obamacare may actually help Obama.  Here are highlights:

What’s the next important thing to look for? The verdict of independent voters in the coming batch of polls about the Supreme Court decision, which I expect we’ll start seeing next week. Whether centrist voters are buying the rhetorical jalopy Mitt Romney is trying to sell them will be key here. I think most of them won’t. The reason is not only that Romney’s claims are so utterly bogus and hypocritical. It also has to do with what we know about how centrist and unaffiliated voters think and what matters to them. They’ll get sick and tired of “Repeal Obamacare,” and they’ll get sick and tired of it well before Election Day.

So the polls are going to ask if people approve of the decision. My guess: independents will lean in favor.  .  .  .  .  Why do I think independents will tilt slightly in favor of the court ruling and, in turn, the act now? Here we get to what matters to these voters. What matters to them is having one party check the other. Independents always, for example, want divided government. And they like it when one party checks the other.  .   .  .  .  The check was performed, right against left, judicial against executive, and Obama was vindicated. The fight is over. Let’s move on. That’s where I think most true swing voters will land. To perform one more mathematical slice—roughly 60 percent of the 7 percent.

This next round of the Obamacare battle will be a crucial and fascinating test of the degree to which the “America died Thursday” dead-ender base controls Romney. So far he’s done nothing but play to it, with his lies about the alleged Medicare cuts and tax increases and all the rest. But there are limits on what he can say, and he and the Republicans in Congress won’t be able to attack the health law in the same way. The congressional Republicans can get away with talking only about repeal, but a presidential candidate has to talk about the replace part, and on that, Romney has nothing to say.

But the more the Republicans pound away at the law, the more they holler about tyranny and freedom, the more Romney vows repeal on day one of his administration—the more they and he will seem completely out of it to a country that, believe it or not, doesn’t want to fight about this thing forever, and doesn’t want another summer of rage like we had in 2009.
I hope the columnist's analysis is on point.  Oh, and for the record, I support a single payer/national health care plan.  It could not be any more inefficient that what we have without reform and it could finally address the horrific lack of preventive care in this county.

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