On a day in September of last year, President Barack Obama predicted to a crowd in Largo, Maryland that one day Republicans will no longer refer to the Affordable Care Act as "Obama care":
Once it's working really well, I guarantee you they will not call it 'Obamacare'.
Following word that the Affordable Care Act insurance exchange has surpassed 6 million subscribers at the end of last week, the Republicans' bellowing bluster about running against "Obamacare" is showing signs of losing velocity and, as we speak, diminishing into anxiety and dreadful fear.
During one of our usual Republican forums that is the traditional Sunday morning political gabfest seen on cable and network television, Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for George W. Bush’s ’04 presidential campaign, made a truly stunning statement that effectively served to highlight the President’s unheralded ability at prognostication. In reference to the Affordable Care Act, he told George Stephanopoulos of ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos:
Matthew Dowd: Well there is some sign of success and for everybody who has criticized this there are people who are getting access to this, there are people that are benefiting from this, but I think the question on this…I think, first of all, the political idea about this is it’s now become detached from the President….
Emphasis by diarist....
Yes, the “controversial” piece of legislation intended to offer tens of millions of people access to healthcare and would mean doom for President Barack Obama in the process would now “become detached from the President.”
It had been, indeed, the bluster of the Republican Party to pledge with certainty that its number one strategy on running against "Obamacare" would deal a powerful blow of defeat to Democrats, but, on this campaign against “Obamacare”, Republican Dowd believes this:
MATTHEW DOWD: Even if this succeeds, I think the President’s job approval, and where he stands in the country, has now become more attached to the economy and less attached to 'Obamacare'.
Dowd then attempted to reclaim some of this Republican certainty about the failure of “Obamacare” by speculating about the program’s failure in the future, which prompted this response from the President’s very competent campaign strategist David Plouffe, who said to the nervously laughing Dowd:
David Plouffe: The law’s working…and this was a seminal achievement. You’re gonna have, by the way, if you count the people who are going directly to private insurance companies, Medicaid, children’s healthcare, you are talking well north of 10 million people who have healthcare—tens of million more will have security…. This law is working and I think the Republican play book of repeal 'Obamacare', repeal 'Obamacare', repeal 'Obamacare', gets tougher as more and more people get healthcare.
Plouffe was adamant, and his point was served by the seemingly confused Republican Party analyst Bill Kristol, who demonstrated an obvious lack of confidence in his Party’s strategy when he confessed to have seen private polling which showed that Republicans would be unsuccessful in upcoming elections should they maintain their stance of outright repealing the ACA. This is striking coming from someone who is viewed by many in his party as some type of Republican sage.
BILL KRISTOL: If Republicans simply, and I’ve looked on a lot of polling in the last week or two on this—some of it private polling—good polling I think. If Republican simply say get rid of it and let Democrats have the ‘keep it and fix it’ position, then—even then it’s sort of 50/50, but then I think Democrats neutralize the issue.
What is even more striking is Kristol’s later declaration that subscribers cannot be summarily thrown off their plans. This surprising morsel of altruism from a member of the heretofore seemingly Obstruct America Party was so perplexing that it became self-evident that the entire interview was being conducted in a dream.
BILL KRISTOL: If republicans run on ‘repeal and replace’—or really, let’s say ‘replace and repeal’—it has to be done at once—you can’t just throw people out!
You cannot indeed, especially when you have nothing to throw them out in….
The worm has started to turn….