Republicans are the party of missed opportunities. Let's review. They score a stunning election victory. Within weeks, they have backstabbed their base, confirmed the democrats worst class hatred arguments about them and totally rolled over on the two biggest issues, obamacare and immigration.
A clever republican, that pretty much narrows it down to Ted Cruz, could make some hay here by throwing in with Warren on the bank issue, criticizing the House for blocking the DC weed initiative and putting up a one man fight over obamacare.
It's been fascinating though to watch the media pivot. If republicans blocked the budget, they were irresponsible, not capable of governing and damaging their party irreparably. When Warren opposed the bill however, it was all about courage and principled opposition to a sleazy deal. She was presidential even. Any media bias there, db?
Beltway, I don't see the Republicans as having "rolled over" on Obamney care. I see them as having done a masterful job of wrecking it. In a thoroughly Clinton-esque maneuver, Obama fed the Republicans their own pablum, cooked up at the Heritage Foundation and adopted by his rival, Mit Paralyzed-from-the-Tits-Down Romney. Problem was he, Obama, lacked his mentor's political skills. All the Republican leadership needed was a couple of conservative democrats (mainly Baucus in the Senate) to help them hoist the wrecking ball, and a magnificent wreckage was assured.
Without killing McCarran-Ferguson first, a DOA idea, and sans the public option, Obamney care would be the goldmine for insurance companies, and the disaster for the rest of us, that Mitch Over-my-Dead-Body McConnell ordered up!
Of course Obama was willing to pass almost anything so long as it let him claim he had made good on his campaign promise to overhaul healthcare. It would have taken a political genius, someone other than Obama obviously, to navigate those dangerous waters and preserve a bill that might have had a chance to improve access to, and reduce the cost of, U.S. medical care. As it was, Obama caved just to get something passed. It would have taken real guts to veto the ACA after the critical component had been stripped out. And my personal opinion is that even had the public option survived, without repealing McCarran-Ferguson the Bill would still have been a disaster. Oh well.
The jury is out on immigration. I can't doubt that if McConnell can figure out a way to create an immigration train wreck and blame it on the democrats he will seize the opportunity. He has always been up front about his number one priority: seeing to it that Obama was a one-term President. He failed at that, but in the process he succeeded magnificently in creating train wrecks. You have to admire the skill and aplomb with which McConnell has carried out is mission. Has he out-obstructed even the "Great One", Newt Gingrich? Only time will tell.
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