Congress: Why Democrats fear Obamacare

No matter how they try to spin it, said Jonathan S. Tobin in CommentaryMagazine.com, the results of last week’s special congressional election in Florida are “a portent of disaster” for Democrats heading into the November midterms. Their candidate, Alex Sink, was far more well-known than her Republican opponent, and she carried the very same district in her unsuccessful bid for governor in 2010. But David Jolly, a former lobbyist with no political experience, beat her anyway. More importantly, Sink ran as a moderate Democrat who tried to “finesse” her position on Obamacare, the signature issue of this campaign and the November elections. She pledged to “fix it,” but lost anyway, demonstrating that the president’s biggest achievement is a disaster “so toxic that any attempt by Democrats to maneuver around it is bound to fail.”

Clearly, “a Republican wave is building,” said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. But for the GOP to take enough seats to control the Senate, candidates can’t run on attacking Obamacare alone. Promising to replace the program and protect the “millions of Americans who have lost their coverage” will attract the “independents and frustrated Democrats” the GOP needs. Jolly’s campaign provided a good model, said Karl Rove, also in the Journal. He emphasized that he wanted to replace the program, not just repeal it, and promised voters “he would go to Washington to make things work, not blow them up.”

As Republicans run against the Affordable Care Act, Democrats need to embrace it, said Eugene Robinson in WashingtonPost.com. Promising, as Sink did, to “keep what’s right and fix what wrong,” sounds “weak and equivocal” in the face of relentless Republican attacks. Democrats need to stress what’s right about the ACA, including the millions of Americans who now have coverage, and the law’s protection of people suffering from pre-existing conditions. Obamacare, warts and all, is the “fulfillment of the great human rights project” that began with the New Deal, said John Cassidy in NewYorker.com. It’s built on the premise that all Americans, “regardless of their incomes and personal histories, have a right to receive medical treatment.” Republicans once fought bitterly against Social Security and Medicare, but today, these programs are politically sacrosanct. If Democrats have the guts to passionately defend Obamacare, universal health care will “come to be seen the same way.”

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