What Chuck Grassley started last week (taking credit for elements of health insurance reform he so vehemently opposed), John Cornyn is advising Repubiican Senate candidates to do this week.
NRSC Chairman John Cornyn plans to send a memo to Republican candidates Tuesday urging them to be proactive in shaping the campaign debate on health care and not let Democrats "distort our record and our ideas." "On the trail, it's critical that we remind people of the fact that it was Republicans who fought to force insurance companies to compete with one another over state lines for Americans' business. It was Republicans who fought to reform the junk lawsuits that raise medical costs and lower quality by forcing doctors to practice 'defensive medicine,'" Cornyn writes, emphasizing the GOP's record beyond its opposition to the Obama-backed health care bill. "It was Republicans who fought for policies that protected Americans with preexisting conditions and it was Republicans who proposed health care reforms that didn't cut Medicare by $500 billion and raise Americans' taxes by $400 million. It's Republicans who continue to believe that we should focus on reforms which actually lower health care costs for Americans, first and foremost." If the GOP thinks health care is going to work to their advantage this year, that doesn't mean they expect that to happen passively.
So John Cornyn, at least, is apparently cluing into the fact that being the party of hell no isn't going work so well for them in November. "See," they're going to tell the American people, "we did everything in our power to keep health insurance reform from happening, but there's stuff in it we did." Leaving out the part, "and then voted against anyway." Taking credit for legislation they opposed is becoming old hat for Repubicans, witness the stimulus program, which at last count well over 100 Republicans (who voted against it) were taking credit for back home.
It's going to be a tougher line to walk for the Republicans with health insurance reform, though. The teabaggers are really wound up now, and are demanding full on repeal. Regular Republicans (what's left of them) and Independents maybe not being so enthused about scorching the earth. The newest Senator, Scott Brown, is trying to toe that line, arguing that Senators need to “work in a bipartisan manner to repeal the worst parts of this bill” and to “replace the worst parts of this legislation.”
Is that a message to keep the base fired up until November?