As promised...
Here it is - Mitch McConnell confirming what anyone who studies politics has been predicting for some time now. As far as he's concerned (and, for better or worse, his opinion matters a lot in Congress), the Democrats just handed the GOP the foundation for its fall campaign platform. The marketing geniuses at the GOP have dubbed it "Repeal and replace." Catchy eh?
The senior Senator from my adopted state of Kentucky is making two big assumptions here though. 1) He's assuming that a majority of voting Republicans don't like this bill and want to change it. Frankly, I think most people know very little about this bill. I include myself in that group, and I'm a politics geek. 2) He's assuming that "fighting back" against the Democrats is the single most important issue to voting Republicans, and I don't think that is the case either. I still think jobs and national security are the most important issues to the GOP's core voters. It's very easy to view this health care bill as a jobs bill - you put an extra 30 million people into the health care system and you've got several dimensions of benefits to the American labor market. What are the costs to the labor market? I have no idea.
A friend of mine is a gun owner. If we still had (legitimate) state militia's, he'd sign up. He sees his right to own and carry a weapon as fundamental, and I have no argument with that. Of all the people I know who own guns, this guy is one of the people I worry about the least. He's a true patriot, and not in the nut-job Glenn Beck sense.
This guy and I were talking the other day and he asked me why I thought there was a shortage of ammunition when Obama took office. This surprised me, because the reason is well documented - most gun nuts really believe that Obama might outlaw or tax ammo, so they keep buying out the gun shops. I'm not making this up. Don't believe me? Ask a cop. Some people claim it's the war in Afghanistan, but here 's a news flash - the Army tends to use bullets that are not available to the rest of us. He didn't believe me. He thinks the government is artificially manipulating the US ammo supply. This is the kind of Republican I'm talking about who does not see expanded health care as the most important campaign issue this fall.
So good luck, Mitch.
The senior Senator from my adopted state of Kentucky is making two big assumptions here though. 1) He's assuming that a majority of voting Republicans don't like this bill and want to change it. Frankly, I think most people know very little about this bill. I include myself in that group, and I'm a politics geek. 2) He's assuming that "fighting back" against the Democrats is the single most important issue to voting Republicans, and I don't think that is the case either. I still think jobs and national security are the most important issues to the GOP's core voters. It's very easy to view this health care bill as a jobs bill - you put an extra 30 million people into the health care system and you've got several dimensions of benefits to the American labor market. What are the costs to the labor market? I have no idea.
A friend of mine is a gun owner. If we still had (legitimate) state militia's, he'd sign up. He sees his right to own and carry a weapon as fundamental, and I have no argument with that. Of all the people I know who own guns, this guy is one of the people I worry about the least. He's a true patriot, and not in the nut-job Glenn Beck sense.
This guy and I were talking the other day and he asked me why I thought there was a shortage of ammunition when Obama took office. This surprised me, because the reason is well documented - most gun nuts really believe that Obama might outlaw or tax ammo, so they keep buying out the gun shops. I'm not making this up. Don't believe me? Ask a cop. Some people claim it's the war in Afghanistan, but here 's a news flash - the Army tends to use bullets that are not available to the rest of us. He didn't believe me. He thinks the government is artificially manipulating the US ammo supply. This is the kind of Republican I'm talking about who does not see expanded health care as the most important campaign issue this fall.
So good luck, Mitch.
Comments
Post a Comment