Democrats the targets after health-care vote

Democratic Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy of Columbus “is setting the stage for a quick career in Congress – a one-term wonder,” the National Republican Congressional Committee said.

Of Rep. John Boccieri, D-Alliance, who voted no on the first House bill but switched to a yes Sunday, the NRCC said: “Boccieri Buckles, Buh-Bye.”

The headline for the GOP news release attacking Rep. Steve Driehaus, the Cincinnati Democrat who voted yes after President Barack Obama agreed to an executive order he said assures that no federal funds would pay for abortions: “Driehaus is D-O-N-E.”

And the day before the vote, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-West Chester, offered a positively apocalyptic vision if the health-care bill passed.

The legislation will “ruin our country,” Boehner told fellow Republicans on Saturday.

So should Kilroy, Boccieri and Driehaus – three freshman lawmakers embroiled in tough races – just step aside and accept their political fates? Is the health-care bill a prescription for a Democratic doomsday in the midterm elections in November, and just the medicine Republicans need to win back multiple seats in Ohio and maybe even regain a congressional majority?

Not so fast. The ultimate electoral fallout won’t be known for months.

“A lot will ride on how the American people feel about this health-care bill in November. It doesn’t matter as much how they feel about it now,” said Nathan Gonzales, political editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. “Both sides are very confident they are on the right side of this issue.”

Democrats are looking at losses in November for a variety of reasons, including the economy and anger at Washington, but it is doubtful that health care by itself will mean victory or defeat.

“The health-care issue isn’t in a vacuum,” Gonzales said. “This election will still have a lot to do with the economy and jobs.”

However, David Winston, a GOP pollster in Washington, contends that for Democrats in moderate, swing districts such as Kilroy, Driehaus and Boccieri, the health-care bill does mean trouble, in part because of the overall political climate.

“You voted for a package people didn’t want and, two, you didn’t focus on the issue they really care about, which is jobs,” he said.

But led by Obama – whose personal popularity still far outstrips congressional Republicans’ – Democrats will embark immediately on an all-out campaign to sell what they have just wrought, and they will refocus on economic issues.

Republicans charge that Democrats employed a corrupt process to ram the final bill through in the face of unanimous GOP opposition.

But Democrats hope for a backlash against the ugly behavior of some anti-health-care-bill activists, from racial epithets hurled toward African-American lawmakers such as civil-rights icon John Lewis, D-Ga., to the in-your-face taunts thrown at a demonstrator with Parkinson’s disease during competing health-care rallies outside Kilroy’s Columbus office. One black Democrat, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, said he was even spat on as he walked past protesters at the Capitol.

Almost certainly, arguments will continue about the long-term fiscal impact of the $940 billion legislation, especially over whether future Congresses really will take the steps needed to add the benefits and still whack the deficit by $138billion over 10 years.

And eventual penalties for people who don’t obtain health coverage and for employers with more than 50 workers that don’t provide coverage also might not prove too popular.

But dessert comes first: Much of what is widely popular will take effect in the next few months, including: no lifetime dollar limits on insurers’ policies, no denying coverage to children (and later to anyone) because of pre-existing conditions, and allowing children to stay on their parents’ plans until age 26.

Democrats clearly intend to try to go on the offensive even as Republicans attack. Kilroy said the bill “will save lives, and allow those with pre-existing conditions to obtain insurance.”

Only one Ohio Democrat voted against the final bill, Rep. Zack Space of Dover. He noted his objections to the process and the tax on high-cost plans, adding that a majority in his conservative southeastern Ohio district opposed the bill.

But Space still has to explain why he voted for the original House health-care bill, which under Space’s logic also presumably would have been unpopular in his district, and then switched – never an easy task for a politician. And Space’s race may have much to do with other issues, especially his vote in favor of a climate-change bill.

But after the prolonged health-care battle, Democrats are unlikely to make a run before the election at other controversial issues such as the climate-change bill with a tax on greenhouse-gas emissions or immigration reform.

Other than the public-relations campaign to sell the health-care bill, Democrats’ refrain from now until Election Day will be jobs, jobs and more jobs – a strategy they are counting on to save their own jobs.
Click here to read the full story.