The guy who has to help Republican Senate candidates get elected in November is only partly on the repeal train:
In a brief chat with the Huffington Post on Tuesday, National Republican Senatorial Committee chair John Cornyn (R-Tex.) implicitly acknowledged that Republicans are content with allowing some elements of Obama's reform into law. And they'd generally ignore those elements when taking the fight to their Democrat opponents as November approaches.
"There is non-controversial stuff here like the preexisting conditions exclusion and those sorts of things," the Texas Republican said. "Now we are not interested in repealing that. And that is frankly a distraction."
What the GOP will work to repeal, Cornyn explained, are provisions that result in "tax increases on middle class families," language that forced "an increase in the premium costs for people who have insurance now" and the "cuts to Medicare" included in the legislation.
The remarks seemingly put Cornyn at odds with the head of all Senate Republicans, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), who signaled on Tuesday that he would support a legislative effort by fellow Republican lawmakers to fully repeal the health care bill. Cornyn himself had previously suggested that he'd support a full repeal campaign as well.
That must be looking a little rash at the moment, particularly since the Chamber of Commerce won't bankroll it. But it puts Cornyn in an interesting position--his leader says full repeal, and the teabagger wing of the party has gone all in. It's the red meat the extreme base is going to demand, but the guy who has to run a bunch of campaigns on it isn't sold.