Democrats Hold G.O.P. Accountable For Health Care Reform Delays

Politico----


(During a recent interview with CBS News' Katie Couric, Pres. Obama tells her he plans to keep the Health Care Reform pressure on Congress.)





A day after President Obama and his top aides trashed comments by Republicans who want to torpedo healthcare reform, Democrats Tuesday launched a coordinated effort to rally support by highlighting the very same quotes.

Hoping to make the political stakes clear and define the healthcare fight on their own terms, each of the Democratic committees, along with Obama’s own political apparatus and MoveOn.org, issued statements or emails focused on a series of unvarnished political assessments offered by Republicans.

In a message to Obama’s campaign email list, Organizing for America director Mitch Stewart cited Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) observation that healthcare reform could represent the president’s “Waterloo” if it fails.

“The ads, the smears, and the attacks — targeting both President Obama and members of Congress who support reform — will only get worse,” Stewart warned as part of an effort to draw more contributors and volunteers.

J.B. Poersch, executive director of the DSCC, cited DeMint and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol’s advice that Republicans “go for the kill” on healthcare this week.

“The comments by Kristol and DeMint prove what we already knew: Republicans have no interest in meaningful reform,” Poersch wrote to the Senate committee’s email list. “Their top goals: Destroy President Obama. Regain political power. Continue Bush-era policies that have cost our country so dearly.”

DCCC chairman Rep. Chris Van Hollen also joined in: “Republicans should immediately put an end to their political games and join President Obama and House Democrats in fixing America’s broken health care system.”

MoveOn.org, in a fundraising pitch to its members, also cited DeMint's "Waterloo" quip as a reason to help Obama with a $300 donation.

"Republicans will stop at nothing to kill health care reform and undermine Obama's agenda for change.

We can't let that happen," the letter reads.

And the DNC, doing their part, cast Republican opposition as another example of the GOP being the “party of no,” patching together a web video that even invoked reliable bogeyman Rush Limbaugh.

Asked about the coordinated strategy, DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse said, “As long as [Republicans] are going to politicize this issue instead of working to solve it - we're going to hold them accountable.”

But given their minority status in both the House and Senate, it’s not Republicans who hold the power to make or break health care – it’s moderate Democrats. That’s who Organizing for America and the DNC are actually expending money to pressure via TV ads in states and districts represented by these swing votes in their own party.

But by drawing attention to Republicans who are hoping to reap the political benefit that would come with health care failure, Obama allies can accomplish at least two goals.

First, they can better focus the attention of their own party base and recalcitrant congressional Democrats on the nature of the opposition and what not passing a bill may mean at the ballot box.

Second, by having Obama himself and then his surrogates discuss the GOP’s raw political calculations, they may divert some eyes from their own intra-party divisions — which pose a far more serious threat to the legislation.

Sources: Politico, CBS News