We are all familiar with the spectacle of a dog frantically chasing a car, which strikes us as stupid because, after all, what on Earth would the dog do with the car if it actually caught it?
That’s basically what we’re witnessing with the Republicans’ monomaniacal war on the Affordable Care Act:
The GOP’s message may well evolve between now and November, but the most tangible early indicator — advertising spending by conservative groups against Democratic candidates — shows how intensely it is focusing on the health-care law.
“It has been the predominant focus of both our grass roots and our advertising efforts,” said Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, the primary political operation of a donor network backed by billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch.
Of the roughly $30 million the group has spent on ads since August, Phillips said, at least 95 percent has gone toward spots about the health-care law.
Democrats have been tracking that spending to help gauge what their candidates will be facing.
In Senate races, where control of the chamber is on the line, all but $240,000 of the $21.2 million that super PACs are spending on television advertising has gone into attacks centered on the health-care law, said Matt Canter, deputy executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The exceptions were ad buys in three states that criticized Democratic senators for supporting President Obama’s judicial nominees.
There is a lot of polling data about ObamaCare, and you can pick and choose which numbers you want to focus on. I like the fact that 57% of self-proclaimed independents think we should either keep the law as it is or make improvements to it, versus 33% who think it should be scrapped. I don’t like that 29% of voters say that they have been negatively impacted by the law versus 17% who say that they have benefitted.
Overall, you could fairly say that the law is slowly becoming less unpopular. This is a victory in itself, considering how much money the Republicans have spent on trashing the law, and how little money the Democrats have spent defending it. If the law were to become popular, the Republicans’ entire midterm strategy would collapse.
As I’ve noted in recent days, the Republicans are so focused on using ObamaCare as a weapon in the midterms that they don’t want to take on tax or immigration reform because either issue would divide their caucus and take the country’s focus off their war on health coverage.
But, I think the public is going to notice that they are like the dog that chases the car. If you elect them to dismantle ObamaCare, they will have no solutions. They can’t do better than ObamaCare no matter what they would like you to believe. Their proposed reforms would cost more money, insure less people, and take away plans from people who like their plans. Everything they claim not to like about the law, they would make worse.
So, while I am nervous about the differential in firepower and resources being dedicated to arguing about ObamaCare, I think the Republicans are putting all their eggs in one basket full of lies and distortion and that we ought to be able to outflank such a clumsy, plodding, charge.
[Cross-posted at Ten Miles Square]
It would not surprise me that the strategy right now is to try to suppress enrollments instead of use the issue against a candidate although the ads have to pretend to be against a candidate in the “Tell Sen. X that…” sort of way. And this is to reduce the number of Republicans who actually have good experiences with Obamacare before the election in November.
There are some attacks on Democrats who supported chained CPI for Social Security–most notably Alex Sink’s run for the House in Florida.
Watch for a pivot to something totally unpredictable in June and certainly by August. And like in 2010, the likely strategy will be to attack Democrats from the left like the bogus “cut $700 billion from Medicare” BS that Romney tried to run on. Also bet that it will be pushing an outright lie instead a half-truth and will try to use an overwhelming amount of media funds to succeed with forcing into peoples’ minds.
They don’t have to get you to support the Republican. Just not vote or skip certain offices on the ballot. It doesn’t look like they are even aiming for ticket-splitters.
Do not underestimate the ability of this nonsense to work if it is not answered strategically by Democrats. And as you pointed out yesterday, too many Democrats are in crouch and hide on issues that are winners for Democrats.
Not even gonna try to predict the unpredictable?
I’m guessing, “The Democrats want to ‘reform’ Obamacare in a way that’ll cost even more money, insure even less people, and take away plans from people who like their plans. Vote Republican and stop this from getting even worse!”
This. Contra that 29%-17% split above, many people are benefiting from Obamacare, and their friends, family, and neighbors are hearing about it. The increasing support for Obamacare is becoming more and more clear as this becomes more true (see here, for example). Dems need to embrace Obamacare and run with it while the Reps stamp their feet and turn blue.
Yes I agree with that as maybe with http://www.seo-mkgroup.com
The “Tell Sen. X that…” thing seems like an issue campaign. If I saw an ad like that, I would think that they were asking me to call my Congressman, rather than asking me to vote against that person.
Part of me wonders if the GOP is so focused on this one law, that they think is horrible, but the rest of don’t feel as strongly about, that they are missing that people are now more inclined to want to fix the law rather than repeal it. Seems to me these ads focus on what’s wrong with the law, not what’s wrong with the candidate. How is that a winning strategy?
When you put up a lady with leukemia who argues that she is hurt by Obamacare, even though she would be denied any insurance because of her pre-existing conditions if Obamacare did not exist, you are trying to overcome rising popularity with emotional appeals of supposed victims. Truth doesn’t matter.
Problem will be the large number of people who have direct experience (unless they fail to sign up because of the AFP ads). They will know better and won’t fall for lies about somebody else’s experience. And that bunch will be randomly distributed across the political spectrum, just like health conditions.
Yep. As long as the focus is on the law and not the candidate, I’m not worried about this strategy. Frankly, I hope they buy into it hook, line and sinker. They are banking on people being as pissed off about this as they were in 2010 and that’s just not the case. I’m not seeing any evidence of out-sized anger in this country right now.
“…and that we ought to be able to outflank such a clumsy, plodding, charge.”
So, WE’RE going to leave out the Democrats out of this “we,” because they can’t message any even goddamn good thing(s) they’ve been trying to do for decades, and doing now?
Because if WE’RE depending on the Democrats, then “WE the people,” are screwed!
You can’t count on a party that has Democratic political morons who try to get reelected by being AGAINST increasing the minimum wage.
You pointed that out earlier, BooMan.
My Congressperson, Tammy Duckworth, was among the few Democrats to vote with the Republicans to delay Obamacare for another year. I don’t know who she thought she was going to appease with this, because R’s are not going to vote for her because they want an anti-abortion Second Amendment purist like EVERY Republican in the upcoming primary. Her vote marks her as a LieberDem to me and if every R running wasn’t TeaCrazy, I wouldn’t vote for her BECAUSE of her vote to delay Obamacare. I’ll bet she really endeared herself to Nancy Pelosi voting against the Party and Minority Leader on this.
It looks more like the Dog that Chases a Parked Car…flat heads notwithstanding…
Hey, Boo, Why is everyone sooooooo worried about these R prognostications?
These are the same people who confidently predicted a Romney landslide … on the sunday before the election. These people are the same yahoos that thought McCranky’s campaign needed to launch an attack on PA (remember CLEAN COAL!!!!!!) on the week prior to the election.
ACA is popular. The driving anti-force is solidifying in places where the popularity of the President can be estimated by the % of black people in the voting population. These people have ALWAYS been opposed to it, but are becoming more adamant as Faux and Friendz are getting more and more shrill. It seems to be simply the Great Red/Blue Divide writ in Health Care instead of Racism.
I haven’t the vaguest idea how this translates into Senate and House results. And if I did have it would probably be wrong. But the one thing I am sure of is that the idiots running these campaigns are not politicians. They are true believing amateurs with a lot of experience. And they aren’t any better now than they were for Romney two years ago.
Besides, there’s always the crazy
I think there’s an inherent advantage in that ObamaCare really should be more popular, at least if it were a question of people rationally considering their own interests. I’m not saying rational people should love ObamaCare just as it is, of course, but then no one is committed to keeping it just as it is. If it’s a choice between ObamaCare and a better system, wonderful, but if it’s a choice between inadequate reforms and none at all, the choice is obvious.
Besides, what is one defending when one defends ObamaCare anyway? It doesn’t have any real essence, it’s just a collection of various reforms that was basically the maximum we were able to get through Congress. I figured the public option was actually the compromise position between the private market and single payer, but no, we couldn’t even have that.
But is it too late?
When have Republicans ever not chased cars. They rail against abortion with no desire to ever outlaw it. They know that if they did so, the gig would be up. To them, everything’s about creating wedges to manipulate opinion to retain and expand their power base. They count on the American people to be really stupid. Their entire approach to politics reveals a total lack of respect for their so-called constituents. They better hope they’re not too effective, because if people ever figure out what they’re up to and get fed up, they’ll be lined up against a wall and shot as traitors.
All that railing got them the Hyde Amendment and so many restrictions on abortion at the state level, that it’s difficult if not impossible for a large number of women to access. It’s also been quite effective at preventing the level of funding for Planned Parenthood (high value, low cost primary care) that would have put some inflation breaks on the cost of US health care.