Reblogged: Will GOP Take ObamaCare off the Table?

[Gus Van Horn blog]

Jack Kelly offers an interesting analysis of the recent special congressional election in Florida, won by Republican lobbyist David Sink. He sets the stage for his analysis by acknowledging and dismissing how the respective major parties will slant that news. And then he shows just how bad the news for the Democrats really is:

Ms. Sink was well known, Mr. Jolly unknown.

"She ran a hyper-disciplined campaign with a far more robust get-out-the-vote effort than Republicans," said Adam Smith, political editor of the Tampa Times.

"A half-dozen Washington Republicans have described Jolly's campaign...as a Keystone Cops operation, marked by inept fundraising...and the poor optics of a just-divorced, 41-year-old candidate accompanied on the campaign trail by a girlfriend 14 years his junior," Politico reported March 7. [minor format edits]

This just sets the stage for what is to come. The news would appear to be all very, very bad for the Democrats: After reading Kelly's analysis, one is left with the strong impression that, if a Democrat who hadn't even voted for ObamaCare could win anywhere, this was a district in which it could easily have happened.

If Kelly is right, and the Republicans have a field day in November, they will have lots of explaining to do if ObamaCare has not been mortally wounded and plans aren't in place to finish it off after the next election. Yes, the President will make it impossible to repeal ObamaCare, but that does not excuse doing nothing or, far worse, "fixing" it.

If anyone has the ability to make ObamaCare a non-issue after this election, it is the Republicans. How? By being sent to Washington en masse to get rid of ObamaCare and utterly failing to do so. In the last election, the Republicans failed to give voters a clear choice. That lost them one election. This time, they can do themselves and America more and longer-lasting harm by only appearing to offer an alternative.

-- CAV

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