Conservative Columnist: Campaign Against Obamacare Is 'Suicide Of The Right'

[ProSense]

Conservative Columnist: Campaign Against Obamacare Is 'Suicide Of The Right'

Conservative columnist John Podhoretz wrote in a New York Post op-ed published Wednesday that Republican lawmakers are doing "significant damage" to their party's already tarnished reputation by assuming the American public supports their campaign against Obamacare.

Podhoretz's column, titled "Suicide of the Right," points out that poll numbers showing Americans disapprove of Obamacare, combined with the data point that twice as many Americans identify themselves as conservative rather than liberal, have incorrectly led the GOP to assume a "silent majority" backs their strategy.

From the op-ed:

If ObamaCare had been as unpopular as conservatives believed, their plan for the shutdown — that there would be a public uprising to force Democratic senators in close races in 2014 to defund it — would’ve worked. It didn’t. Not a single senator budged.

Their tactic failed, and now what they are left with is House Speaker John Boehner basically begging the president of the United States to negotiate with him.

One thing we know for sure is that it’s not an equal fight, this fight between a man who received 65 million votes nationwide and a man who received 246,000 votes in one congressional district in Ohio.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/conservative-columnist-campaign-against-obamacare-is-suicide-of-the-right

Meet Butch Matthews, A Republican Who Came To Love Obamacare After Realizing It'll Save Him $13,000
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023770187

How A Rand Paul Republican From Alabama Learned To Love Obamacare
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/04/2730801/joshua-pittman/

Under Obamacare, Disney World Will Promote Its Part-Time Workers To Full-Time Status
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023767654

More horrendous polling news for GOP: Even in deep red Utah, voters say they've gone too far
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023799150

John Boehner: Worst. Speaker. Ever.

Mr. Tears is a clown.

A failure for the ages

By Steve Benen

I find it relatively easy to feel sorry for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). He's weak and inept, but most of the ridiculous things that happen among House Republicans aren't by Boehner's design. The Speaker didn't want the 2011 debt-ceiling crisis; he didn't to hold several dozen votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act; and he didn't want the government shutdown he forced last night. They're all the result of a radicalized caucus he doesn't control, want, or influence.

But Jonathan Cohn makes the case that what Boehner needs isn't pity; it's blame.

He's in a difficult position, for sure, but it's partly one of his own making. Sometimes leadership means telling followers what they can and can't do. In this case, that should have meant telling Tea Party Republicans they can't get rid of Obamacare, because it became law, was upheld by the Supreme Court, and validated by a presidential election. Boehner tried to say something along those lines after the election, but conservatives howled and -- as usual -- he backed down, promising the right they'd get their chance. Now they expect it to happen.

It won't. And at some point Boehner needs to say so. It will mean taking political risks, but that's what leaders do.

As he's proven, leading isn't Boehner's principle goal. The Speaker wants to hang on to his power, his nice office, and his lovely gavel, and if that means going out of his way to placate extremists so they don't get mad at him, so be it.

That might be pathetic, but it's also the foundation of his job security.

Indeed, in the larger context, it seems the political mainstream is still coming to terms with a dynamic for which there is no modern precedent: a Speaker of the House with no power, no backbone, no accomplishments, and no prospects for success. Boehner isn't just failing in basic tasks, he's failing as Speaker at a historic level.

- more -

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/10/01/20772599-a-failure-for-the-ages

[gopiscrap]

1. Then let them do it, I would love to see the right wing comitt suicide!!!