We told everyone that
the Florida special election wasn't about Obamacare and that it wasn't going to send Democrats into a tailspin. It hasn't, not in North Carolina or in Arkansas in
two key Senate races.
[Sen. Kay] Hagan, like most other Democrats in tough races, is adopting a "keep, but fix" message, hoping to contrast with the "repeal" stance of Republican opponents. Part of that is a matter of necessity -- what else could they really say about the law?--but the outcome of the Florida special election hasn't led to any kind of panic or shift in strategy from her, Morgan Jackson, a Democratic strategist in the state, also told TPM.
That reaction or lack thereof extended to Arkansas, where Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor has also been attacked for backing Obamacare.
With polls showing
record support for the law, Republican obsession over Obamacare is about one thing: mobilizing the base, because the GOP base is the only segment of the population that thinks the law should be scrapped. That's what Democrats need to worry about in 2014, not the overall unpopularity of the law.
In fact, the key is taking Republican repeal obsession head on, talking about how much time they've wasted when they could have been doing something about jobs and the economy, talking about how much repeal would take away from people. And, yes, talking about Medicaid expansion. They need to be countering the Kochs' horror stories with the good news stories. They shouldn't be hard to find, there's at least five million of them out there. Those are the stories that will appeal to the people Democrats need to turn out in November.