Saturday Open Thread [4.19.14]
On Obamacare, the Republican party has bet big on failure for four years. Now the results are in. And they lost. Big time.
Of course, substance [sic] policy success and political outcomes aren’t the same thing. And just as importantly they do not always run on the same time scale. So it is entirely possible. I would say it is likely that the GOP will still derive benefits this November from the core of voters who are extremely upset about Obamacare, extremely motivated to vote and also happen to be the same people who routinely turn out in disproportionate numbers in mid-term elections. But on the core of the policy, which I think there is good reason to believe will align with political outcomes in the future, the results are in. And they lost. […]
Of course, in the Obamacare gotterdammerung bubble, Obamacare is on its last legs and President Obama will soon resign and ask the country for mercy as he’s hustled off by federal marshals to stand trial for Obamacare and socialism. Back on planet earth though reality-based opponents see the writing on the wall.
Indeed, the new data goes beyond simply saying that Obamacare is stable or is not headed toward a death spiral. It’s better than that. It’s working as expected. The rate of uninsured Americans is going down substantially – especially in states that didn’t try to sabotage the rollout.
They bet on failure. And they lost the bet.
So now Democrats, if they want to call themselves Democrats any longer, better, loudly and proudly, campaign on this law every where. Alabama and Delaware. Alaska and New York. Arkansas and California. Because not only is it the right thing to do, the Democratic thing to do, it is the electorally wise thing to do. And if you want to convince a spineless corportatist Democrat facing reelection of something, tell them it will get them elected.
Stan Greenberg had been previously telling these spineless cowards to campaign on moving past Obamacare. Now he is telling them to embrace it. Because his polling tells him it is the better idea.
“Until now, this is an issue where the intensity has been on the other side,” he says. But defending Obamacare, he adds, has emerged as “a values argument for our base.” Greenberg now believes Democrats “ought to lean much more strongly” to campaign on the virtues of Obamacare as a means of boosting progressive turnout. “Not apologizing for Obamacare and embracing it actually wins the argument nationally,” he says. “And it produces much more engagement of Democratic voters. That’s a critical thing in off-year elections.”
No fucking shit. Seriously, if you wonder why Progressives have absolutely no respect for our corporatist spineless establishment party, what with people like Chris Coons, Tom Carper, John Daniello et al, it is because we are nearly always proven right, and yet we are the ones treated with disdain by them.
