2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forum"No, This Was Not The Better Outcome For Mitt" (ACA) by Alec MacGillis at the New Republic
No, This Was Not The Better Outcome For Mittby Alec MacGillis at the New Republic
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/104494/no-was-not-the-better-outcome-mitt
"SNIP...................................
But I dont buy it. Judging this the better outcome for Romney means seriously understating just how brutal the laws rejection would have been for Obama. It would have allowed Romney to argueto crow to the skies, surelythat Obamas entire first term had been a giant zero: not only had he been unable to bring the economy back to full strength, but the issue he chose to focus on for the first two years of his term, when the economy was at its worst, had been proven a fools errand. It would, as Jon Chait put it before the ruling, have cast a demoralizing stench of failure that would have come from having his largest achievement go to waste.
And thats not all. Romney has been in a bind on health care all campaign, given that he signed into the law the model for Obamacare. But a ruling against the law would have allowed Romney to lambast it on the courts termsas an unconstitutional overreach. The courts negative imprimatur would be all that he would need to invoke to make the case against the law. Whereas, as Nate Cohn points out, the courts upholding of the law will probably now enhance the laws legitimacy in the eyes of some voters. And, crucially, it will now fall to Romney himself to lead the argument against Obamacare, and to the extent that he takes up this charge, it will bring into focus, as never before, just how compromised he is on this front. Yes, there would have been talk of what to do about health care had the law been thrown out, and this, too, would have brought attention to Romneys record on the issue, and to just how bare the cupboard of reforms is that he and other Republicans are now offering as a replacement for the law. But Im not sure the bareness of that cupboard would necessarily have been so damaging to the Republicansthe partys lack of interest in doing anything to expand health coverage is hardly a new thing; in fact, it arguably helps define the modern GOP. Odds are, Romney and the Republicans would have simply avoided the subject as best they could, beyond ridiculing Obama for the laws rejection. But if Romney now wants to rally voters against Obama, as the this is good for Mitt camp says he will be able to do, he will have to talk about the subject that is so very awkward for him.
And when he does so, when he makes the case for doing away with Obamacare, and Obama in turn makes the case for keeping it ("forward, not back" , Romney will be doing, as John Dickerson notes, exactly what he didnt want to do this election: he will be turning it into a choice between two approaches, rather than a referendum on the incumbent who couldnt even make sure his biggest achievement passed constitutional muster. No, this is not good for Mitt.
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MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)It makes Romney's job far more difficult - hopefully impossible.
Mayberry Machiavelli
(21,096 posts)(that this is politically better for Romney and the GOP for November) I think it's laughable.
No way they won't try to use it to rally their army of zombies, but they'd have been WAY better off, and Obama WAY worse off, if the ruling had gone the other way, for the reasons stated in this piece.
PATRICK
(12,229 posts)In everything except trying to be an echo chamber for lunacy and hypocrisy Romney is- in substance and on record- the wrong suit. Romneycare. Verbally against what he was a forerunner for. How do you politically repent for being the thing you campaign against when that is the lonely political experience in your popgun?
Might as well be an abortion doctor running on the Right to Life ticket. How can that glare not light up the bane of Bain, joyful job-killer for offshore profit? How can the bumbling anti-charisma of another rich guy energize even the dumbest masses? Sure, get plastered at a convention and anything in an elephant suit looks great, but there is an election day after.
Watching those trapped in this hopeless death spiral of a fundamentally flawed champion(the best of a sordid bunch???), unapologetic hypocrites and power wielders, lick-spittles and media courtiers, donors trying to bend recalcitrant reality to moronic will, flapping bat wings, gnashing teeth, drowning out the disgust and laughter with serious pumping of a swiss cheese campaign balloon- the only entertainment this fall. The fact that there is no real election and no address of real problems beyond the sad American scene will all be protected by a thin slice of Romney ham on stale white bread.
Lest the entire silly, sordid pack of worthless GOP government Reps follow hi justly to oblivion- if not mere accountability- if not some small measure of justice.
siligut
(12,272 posts)So, the RW strategy is to always say they are winning. The RW tells the dupes that vote against their own interests that they are winners too, and the idiots take it to heart.