In a delicious twist of fate, the Republican Party has missed a huge opportunity to capitalize on its opposition to the Affordable Healthcare Act and in fact has helped conceal its disastrous rollout.
Until Sunday!
We explain how in this happened in Shutdown and debt ceiling crisis have obscured really serious problems.
Perhaps unintentionally, the point was driven home by two seemingly unrelated stories on the front page of the national editions of The New York Times.
The lead story was all about the horrendous beginning to Obamacare.
It was headlined: From the Start, Signs of Trouble at Health Portal and went into great detail about its failings – and their history.
“Even some supporters of the Affordable Care Act worry that the flaws in the system, if not quickly fixed, could threaten the fiscal health of the insurance initiative, which depends on throngs of customers to spread the risk and keep prices low,” The New York Times reports.
Right next to it, in print, the political damage done to the GOP by the continuing government shutdown. The GOP fears it can’t win control of the Senate!
The two are closely related, however.
The damage Republicans have done to themselves over the shutdown of the federal government seems likely to come back to haunt them in the 2014 mid-term elections.
Sure, most Republicans are in safely conservative gerrymandered districts. But incumbents could face challenges from their left and their right.
Off-year mid-terms usually go to the party out of power. Not this time, it seems. 2014 could be an exception.