Mitch McConnell (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has decided that
there's not much percentage in attempting to continue a futile effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He might not have much going for him in the way of principles, but he is smart enough politically to understand that voters in 2012 are much more concerned about the economy.
Unfortunately for McConnell, some big spenders on the Right don't want to let that happen.
One group, the Restore America’s Voice Foundation, plans to spend $50,000 to $100,000 per week on television ads pressing Senate Republicans to force a vote on repeal. [...]
“For Republicans to be too timid to force repeated votes on repealing ObamaCare is political malpractice,” said Brian Darling, senior fellow for government studies at the Heritage Foundation. [...]
Other groups that want Senate votes on full repeal include the Club for Growth and Americans for Tax Reform.
“We should have a vote on repealing ObamaCare every week,” said Andrew Roth, vice president of government affairs at the Club for Growth.
Back on planet earth, the most recent Kaiser Family Foundation
poll [pdf] actually found that repeal really isn't so popular after all. Fifty-four percent of respondents either want to keep the law as is (19 percent) or expand it (35 percent), while 18 percent say replace it with the as-of-yet nonexistent Republican replacement and 19 percent say repeal it. Republican math doesn't really work like everyone else's, but 19 percent does not make a majority.
McConnell is smart enough to read the polls, though his caucus might not be. He's going to continue to get a lot of pressure from these outside extremist groups, and from the fringe in his own caucus. He'll likely bow to the pressure and keep on having disastrous votes like the Blunt amendment, already giving "moderate" Republicans heartburn. Good.
