Democrats Stumped on ObamaCare

FROM: Rob Simms, NRCC Political Director

TO: Interested Parties

SUBJECT: MEMO: Democrats Stumped on ObamaCare

It is six month until Election Day, and the Democrats’ strategy of how to deal with ObamaCare remains clear as mud.

Over the last several months, they’ve been all over the map and unable to settle on a consistent and coherent strategy. And it’s obvious why: None of their approaches have worked, and recent polling shows the law is becoming more – not less – unpopular.

This is a significant problem for Democrats as Election Day nears. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll has ObamaCare continuing to lose ground among the electorate. Support for the law is down 5 points, to 44 percent, and President Obama’s approval rating for the implementation is down 7 points to 37 percent, even as the administration touts supposed successes. President Obama’s approval rating is lower now than it was at this point in 2010, in large part because of this issue.

Up until now, the Democrats various “strategies” on ObamaCare have not worked for a very basic reason: They remain in denial that ObamaCare is not working for American families and that it is increasingly unpopular.

• First, Democrats were going to “own” ObamaCare. DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Nancy Pelosi both said Democrats would proudly run on the law, even as the website was crashing and Americans were losing their plans – after promises they could keep them.

• On the ground, though, things played out differently in House races. Pelosi’s Super PAC, House Majority PAC, and Democrat candidates and incumbents in targeted seats sought to distance themselves from the law. But the approach proved too ridiculous to pass the smell test. For instance, Ann Kirkpatrick in Arizona was called out by the press for being called a “whistle blower” on ObamaCare. The NRCC immediately went up on the air countering this ad.

• Next, Democrats said they would run on “fixing” ObamaCare, and they tried that in the Florida 13 Special Election. But what Democrats learned was that voters fundamentally don’t trust the people who created this problem, to fix it. Their candidate, Alex Sink, wasn’t even in Congress to vote for ObamaCare, but her support for keeping it on books plagued her throughout the race and left her on defense. So you can imagine how much harder it will be for Democrats who voted for ObamaCare, like Carol Shea Porter in New Hampshire, to distance themselves from the law.

• Democrats were going to attempt to turn the tables on Republicans and attack us on ObamaCare. They tried this in Florida, too, and failed. Voters didn’t buy the attacks and won’t elsewhere because our candidates are on the same page as mainstream American voters: We need to start over and create real heath care reform that allows families to choose the plans they want, the doctors they need at the cost they can afford.

BOTTOM LINE: Democrats don’t seem to understand that the success of ObamaCare is being judged by Americans on how it is impacting the cost and quality of their families’ healthcare coverage. This is a personal issue to voters. The president and House Democrat have their heads buried in the sand. As they hold press conferences trying to claim “Mission Accomplished,” Americans are sitting around their kitchen tables dealing with the impacts of a law that is not working for them. Until Democrats understand that, their strategies will continue to fail. But they should at least settle on some strategy – any strategy – given that the election is only six months away.