On one of Rachel Maddow’s shows she talked about how the Democrats have a special sauce to use against the existing GOP congress people – namely the voting record of every single member. She goes on to share how in Senator Pryor is using Congressman Cotton’s voting record against him to gain support for his reelection. She then proceeds to list several other Senate races where the same strategy can be used to sway public opinion. At first I thought – Great finally a Democrat is showing some spine to turn the dreaded “mid-term elections” into a real battle.
Then a second thought occurred to me – Wait, you mean no Democrat has done this before? You are telling me no one has held this do nothing congress accountable before based on each individual’s voting record? I find this hard to believe. Every single House District can use this strategy! I do not care how “red” a particular district is – if someone would point out each of the votes of a particular congress person’s record negatively affects thousands of people in their district – I fail to see how that congress person can be reelected time after time.
You have the entire Social Security / Medicare angle already brought up by Senator Pryor. Then there is the forty plus times to repeal the Affordable Care Act (or ObamaCare). Yes, I know the “ObamaCare” has a strong negative rating – but the individual portions of the plan have a strong positive rating.
So instead of saying Congress person X voted 40 times to repeal ObamaCare – which would not get much traction – change it to say Congress person X voted over 40 times to deny healthcare coverage to someone with a preexisting condition, to force young people over the age of 18 to obtain their own healthcare coverage and not be on their parents healthcare. This list (and attack) could go on and on.
Another strategy against about all those repeal votes -- Go after the Congress persons on JOBS. Many of these people were elected to do something about returning Jobs. Here the strategy would be to point out how many medical jobs and hospitals are within the congressional district – then point out because of congress person X voting record all of these jobs were put at risk because congress person x wanted to defund the healthcare for the region.
Then there is the whole government shutdown fiscal – this was widely unpopular even among the GOP public. Reminding the public how congress person X shut down travel, national parks and the like should renew all those unfavorable opinions of congress.
I do not care how many times a particular GOP congress person has been reelected or how “safe” that district is for the GOP – a few simple reminders about what this congress has done or not done should at least put any race with an incumbent GOP congress person and their democrat challenger – into a very close race.
I am tired of hearing of all the wailing – “oh this is an off year election” we are doomed.
Come on people grow some spines, or at least use some common sense! With the number of times the US public has been screwed by this Congress – Every Single congressional race in this country should be at a minimum very tight; if not a “cake-walk” for any democrat challenger.