Republicans Committed to Losing in 2010

By Dave

Tea party activists and GOP notables such as Newt Gingrich are pushing 2010 Republican candidates to run on a platform of repealing health care reform. This is a great strategy...for Democrats! Really, it sounds great! Seriously, please do this. LMAO!

Run on a platform that will actively deny 30 million people health care coverage, that will allow insurers to deny people based on pre-existing conditions, that will add billions to the federal deficit, that will make health care less affordable, and cause costs to spiral out of control. Please do this. I dare you, I double dog dare you.

Granted, the more savvy of the Republican contenders will probably pick and choose pieces out of the health care bill, like individual mandates, to attack. But who knows if this will be enough sate the teabaggers and party activists, I guess we'll see.

I think Republicans are looking at a bad year in 2010. They've decided to be 100% a Party of No. They've bet against the economy, against health care reform, against climate change, against the war, and against national security. They've doubled down on failure. But they've misread the tea leaves. Sure, people are mad right now, in part because the economy is so bad, and in part because the Obama administration has tackled big, controversial issues that have gotten people riled up and, frankly, scared and confused. But people aren't mad because they know what health care reform does, they're mad because they have no idea what it does. My guess is not many people off the street could explain health care reform. So people are rightfully anxious. 

But there's a long time between now and Nov. 2010. There's a lot of pieces in play and it's too early to know where they'll land. The stimulus bill will begin to ramp up, the economy may begin to improve if only marginally, some health care reforms will kick in immediately, Guantanamo may finally be shut down, some troops may come out of Iraq, Afghanistan could be marginally better. There's enough to be anxious about but it's to uncertain to be excited about.

The Republican platform is just so tragically short-sighted. When the world doesn't crash around our ankles, when things do get better, then what? They have no answer. They're too blinded by rage and frustration, they can't ask the obvious questions about their own platform. But if Republican's want their platform to be the gallows of their own demise, so be it.