Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Monday, March 4, 2013

Obamacare

This will all be a big, big deal going forward. And it recalls Bill Kristol’s famous or infamous memo during the Clinton health care reform debate. At the time that Republicans were inclined to negotiate on health care reform with Clinton, Kristol came forward and said Republicans needed to embrace 100% opposition. No reform at all — just no. In political terms it ended up being fabulously successful. Reform was defeated and the political aftermath was the GOP takeover of Congress the following year. But the key point is what Kristol predicted about the consequences of the success of reform: the public would like it, would never let it get overturnedand it would become the cement of a new Democratic coalition, much as Social Security and other parts of the welfare state were a couple generations before. We may be seeing just that happening to day. 
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/03/it_led_to_some_snarking.php?ref=fpblg

Remember the number one rule of Fight Club: Bill Kristol is always wrong.

By opposing without offering an alternative, the GOP has set themselves up for political irrelevancy if Obamacare works even half as well as it's planned to.

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