October 27, 2010

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By Dave Andrusko

It's kind of fun, actually, to be among the few who have known all along what the underlying dynamic is driving the off-year elections. But it's even more rewarding when the scales fall from their eyes and the "mainstream media" finally catches on: Folks, Democrats were undone by their vote for ObamaCare.

I offer you "Health Care is Ailing Democrats," by Josh Kraushaar, which ran this morning in National Journal. The first five sentences capture the essence of this terrific analysis:

"Election Day isn't until Tuesday, but the postgame spin has already begun. Conventional wisdom is blaming Democrats' expected poor performance on the lousy economy. Democrats blame the influx of outside money. And Republicans are thanking Nancy Pelosi.

"But the reality that Democrats hate to discuss – and even some Republicans have been hesitant to fully embrace – is that the party's signature health care law is what's turning a bad election year into a disaster of potential history-making proportions."

Hmmm. Where have you read THAT before? So why has it been so hard to acknowledge that massive resistance not only to the substance of ObamaCare but also to the stealthily way it was passed poisoned the well for Democrats?

For starters (without naming names), certain outlets, including nominally "non-partisan" organizations insisted that the electorate's feelings were mixed. So if you asked the question the "right" way, lo and behold the public isn't really seething about a massive take-over of one-sixth of the entire economy.

Kraushaar sites recent polls that demonstrate beyond cavil that the public is solidly opposed AND in favor of repealing ObamaCare. In an awful year for Democrats, the few that sort of mention their vote are in trouble while "By contrast, Democrats who opposed the bill are in surprisingly decent shape, given the lousy political environment."

We wrote dozens and dozens of blog entries and stories for National Right to Life News that documented that ObamaCare does in fact provide federal subsidies for health plans that pay for abortion, and that some Democrats who had previously voted pro-life sold the Movement out in the eleventh hour by voting for ObamaCare.

According to Kraushaar, "Indeed, House Democrats who gave the decisive margin at the end – the so-called Stupak bloc, who held out their support until anti-abortion language was inserted and those who flipped their votes to support the bill -- read like a who's who of the most at-risk Democrats."

To be clear, they are trouble not because they "flipped." Had ObamaCare truly been ridden of its abortion components (and provisions that guarantee rationing), that would have changed everything. But it wasn't--which NRLC pointed out at the time--and thus support for ObamaCare became a test of whether Democrats were going to vote for the biggest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade was decided.

Why else was the fork-in-the-road significance of ObamaCare overlooked? To be fair, the American public IS greatly concerned by the precarious state of our economy.

But what happens if a poll asks an open-ended question "about what gives [respondents] the biggest pause about voting for their sitting member of Congress"? (This is what the National Republican Congressional Committee did, according to Kraushaar, "in 65 of the most competitive congressional seats held by Democrats.")

What did the poll reveal? That "a solid plurality said it was health care – ahead of the economy and jobs." If that weren't evidence enough, we also learn, "In a follow-up focus group in Erie, Pa., with some of the poll's participants, one of the organizers said it was striking to see how many women's votes were driven by health care. Some came to the focus group reciting chapter and verse the provisions of the law they didn't like. Many said they were Obama supporters in 2008, but the more they heard about the health care bill, the more frustrated they became."

Why is this important, beyond the intrinsic importance of the truth winning out? We have heard a ceaseless litany of excuse-making by pro-abortion Democrats (led by President Obama), the core of which is that Democrats are going down in flames because the electorate is (take your pick) "angry," "irrational," unable to understand "complex issues," and lots of other really ugly assertions.

The truth is, as Kraushaar concludes in his final paragraph, "This election is not about messaging or money -- it's largely about policy, and in particular, on a far-reaching piece of legislation that has proven deeply unpopular in states and districts across the country."

[You can read the entire article at http://nationaljournal.com/columns/against-the-grain/health-care-is-ailing-democrats-20101026]

Please send your comments on Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha.

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