President Obama and his team of advisors made a serious mistake when they asked the highest court in the land rule on the constitutionality of an individual mandate for health insurance (the court also selected a case that involves the Medicaid expansion provision in the bill). While it’s pretty much impossible to predict how the court will swing in their decision, its pretty easy to analyze the political fallout and see that this is a lose, lose for the President of the United States.
Obamacare was and continues to be the President’s biggest political mistake, he wasted much of his early political capital on the unpopular reform and now he’s asked for the issue to be relitigated, literally. The President took a beating in the 2010 midterms largely because of the $800 billion yet “not big enough” (just ask Paul Krugman) stimulus and Obamacare. These two issues brought the conservative base of the country out in massive numbers, pretty much to let the President and to a lesser extent Congress, know they were no fans of these far left policies. If you want proof that an individual mandate still isn’t too popular, look no further than Ohio where a state constitutional amendment preventing Ohioans from being forced to opt into the system passed 66-34 on a day when a provision basically banning collective bargaining came down 61-39 in favor of the unions. This just in: Ohio is usually pretty important in Presidential politics. So, Ohioans didn’t like Governor John Kasich’s overreach, but they also really don’t like Obamacare.
It was a political doomsday for the President and his party, now he’s decided he wants to see one of the driving forces of this day brought up all over again? It doesn’t really make much sense. Some are calling it a political gamble, I’m going to call it what it is, a mistake. Whether you’re for or against the Affordable Care Act (I happen to be for parts of it, certainly not the mandate, or most of it for that matter), it’s hard to argue against the fact that the President should leave it alone in bureaucratic hell, far, far away from anywhere that it can affect his chances at re-election.
You see, if the court rules in favor of the Affordable Care Act, with the ruling likely to drop in June, the Republicans, who as previously stated cleaned up in the midterms running against the stimulus and healthcare, are given the easy opportunity to do the same next fall. But this time it won’t just be for the House, it will be for the biggest prize in American politics, the Presidency. Fortunately for Romney, et al. when the Court (theoretically) drops their ruling in favor of Obamacare, the issue will be fresh, no longer just a lost battle from two years ago, or just a scar that still makes them cringe (especially Michelle Bachmann, I don’t know if you heard, but she lead the Congressional opposition to Obamacare. Seriously, just ask her!). And a fresh issue makes an excellent campaign issue; especially one conservatives and many moderates have a serious distaste for.
Oh by the way, two months after the ruling, the Republicans will be having a little pow-wow known as a National Convention in Tampa, won’t it be great for every speaker to be able to rail against the liberal Court decision validating a liberal Presidential agenda. I can hear it now, “We need to take action before its too late, before the liberal establishment takes away everything that makes this country great!” They’ll probably let Rick Perry do that one in his nominating speech for his new best friend Governor Mitt Romney!
See here lies the only real issue for the Republicans on this one, because believe you me, Mitt Romney will be the nominee. And if a member of the freak show (read everyone but Jon Huntsman) gets the nomination, none of this analysis matter because Barack Obama will win LBJ-Goldwater style (despite his faults, LBJ defeated the absolute ideologue Goldwater) and win like 60% of the popular vote. You might remember that before Mitt Romney became the highly conservative Presidential candidate, he was the moderate Governor of Massachusetts, and he instituted, you guessed it, an individual mandate. Despite the fact that Romney and his team have written this off as a state issue and have said it’s not a plan he would use nationally, it’s still pretty tough to nail a guy you’re running against on an issue when he got a lot of his ideas from one you instituted as Chief Executive of a state. It would just ring a little hollow from an already hollow, flip-flopping candidate (we’ve already seen attacks in this vein from the Obama team, just look at David Axelrod’s twitter or see David Plouffe on Meet the Press tell America Romney “has no core”). But I’d say some of the SuperPACs could make some nice ads hitting Obama on health care and Romney would still attack on it, just hollowly. Also, once again an unpopular piece of legislation would still be on the forefront nationally.
So, if the pieces of the Affordable Care Act up in the Court are constitutional, then progressives can cheer all they want, but it does a lot of harm electorally to a President that already is staring down 9% unemployment and a 40s approval ratings and as we’ll discuss soon a rather vulnerable upper chamber.
Now the other side, let’s say gets Obama gets beat in court, can you say embarrassing? And to make matters worse, it not only hurts his chances, it hurts a litany of vulnerable Democratic Senators from heartland states like, among others, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, both of whom voted for Obamacare and the stimulus. These issues, since it was so successful to hate on them in ’10, were certain to come up in 2012 anyway, but with health care fresh, no matter which way it swung, these two and a few others certainly see their chances go down (the Republicans only need to flip four seats to take the majority).
Why do their chances go down you may ask? Because conservatives hate “socialized medicine” as they often call it (progressives would much rather have you call it the Affordable Care Act, so uplifting!). So if parts of it are struck down they will be thrilled, but it’s also easy to paint the narrative that, even with the parts of it struck down, it’s still socialized medicine since, (cue the ominous voice), “Somebody has to pay for it. And that somebody is, you!” Sorry I was just quoting a campaign ad that hasn’t yet been made that will run in every competitive and/or conservative district and state in the country.
If you’re tracking with me here, you realize that if the court goes against Obama, it will be quite embarrassing for him and put his Congressional (not so close) friends in a bad spot, but if you have an astute political mind, you are likely thinking, “If it loses, the same rally up the troops thing happens on the left.” I concede this point with one caveat, people just aren’t going to be as excited to vote for the President as they were when he ran on his, mean whatever you want it to mean “hope and change for the future” message. And because of this lack of excitement for the President, the enthusiasm level on the right is going to crush the enthusiasm on the left, no matter how this goes.
This will now just be an added advantage for the right, and even though people can slam these candidates all they want (which I am fond of doing), the President can only concede so much politically. If you’re playing with 3 guys on the basketball court against 5, then I don’t care how good those 3 are (with the exception of a team of NBA stars like Chris Bosh, Dwayne Wade, and LeBron James. Oh they tried that and it didn’t work? Nevermind.), the team with 5 is going to win every time. Even with all of his inherent, unchangeable disadvantages in this, there are still a lot of things that could change and go right for Obama in the next year giving him a second term. He is the incumbent after all, the number one best advantage in politics.
Health care will just be one issue in a huge national campaign, but it will be a big one, and President Obama better hope that he didn’t just make it the decisive one. Plus with the exciting Americans Elect third party movement going on, this election and the level of the debate on issues could go well above where it’s ever been, but that’s why politics is awesome. We don’t know, this is just one of many possibilities.
I can’t help but think that some in the White House must have cringed when they heard the court granted cert. And either way, Reince Priebus and his pals at the RNC should be cheering.
You made another mistake Mr. President. And someday (possibly) soon, despite all of your rhetorical skill, your mistakes are going to sink you.
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