It might turn into a battle between the right-wing Super PACS in the North Carolina Senate race, which could make for a very interesting primary. That ad up above is running in a $1 million ad buy from Karl Rove's American Crossroads for state House Speaker Thom Tillis, the supposed GOP frontrunner. What's the problem for Tillis with $1 million being spent on his behalf? Instead of saying anything at all about Tillis and "repeal," it says Tillis has "the conservative guts to replace Obamacare with honest health care reforms." That's drawn from a radio interview Tillis gave in February that suggested he thought Obamacare wasn't a wholly terrible idea.
That puts Mr. Tillis in kind of a tough spot. See, the Kochs' Americans for Prosperity has pumped well over $6.5 million in the state, running ads attacking Sen. Kay Hagan over Obamacare. The law they want repealed. And only repealed.
See, Tillis has a tea party primary opponent, Greg Bannon, who is using this ad for his attack on Tillis. Here's his spokesman: "You’ll notice it makes no mention of repealing Obamacare which would take real guts and surprisingly it even references the same radio interview in which Thom says Obamacare is a great idea that can’t be paid for."
All of which forced Tillis's camp to tell Greg Sargent that "Speaker Tillis obviously does not think Obamacare is a great idea, and in fact he wants to repeal it and will do so in the U.S. Senate." But Tillis apparently isn't asking Crossroads to take down their $1 million worth of ads. He's going to need that money if the Kochs decide they want to back the real repeal true believer.
Once again, repeal is turning out to be a real bitch for Republican Senate candidates. Too bad.