Obamacare Takes The Stage In Florida...Or Does It?

Next month's special election for the House seat of the late GOP Rep. Bill Young in Florida's 10th District is all about how the Sunshine State's senior citizens feel about Obamacare.  Democrat Alex Sink is backing the program 100%, and her GOP opponent, David Jolly, is attacking Sink over it.  But Republicans have bigger problems in Florida, namely Social Security.

No matter the winner, Democrats appear to have little chance to capture the 17 seats needed to win a House majority in November. Yet this race has drawn national attention also because Obamacare figures prominently already in races in the Senate, where enough seats appear competitive nine months before Election Day to give Republicans an opportunity at winning control.

The candidates took different paths to their March 11 matchup to serve out the term of the late Republican Rep. C.W. "Bill" Young, who died last fall.

Sink, 65, had a career in banking before she was elected the state's chief financial officer in 2006. A longtime resident of Tampa in next-door Hillsborough County, she is attacked by Republicans and their allies as a carpetbagger for moving over the county line into the district in preparation for the campaign.

Jolly, 41, was born in the congressional district. Yet he has long experience in Washington, first as an aide to Young, whom he features in his advertising and public remarks, and then as a lobbyist. Democrats seized on his lobbying work, saying he was retained by a special interest that wants to privatize Social Security.

The Social Security privatization scheme card goes a long way in Florida, as both McCain and Romney found out.

The race to serve the balance of Young's term has attracted outside groups on
the left and the right even though evidence is spotty at best that so-called special elections can predict which party will win a nationwide fall campaign.

Each one "has its own particularly unique and hyperlocal dynamics," said New York Rep. Steve Israel, who heads the House Democratic campaign organization.

And for all the attention paid to Obamacare, Republicans betray concern that Sink's persistent attacks linking Jolly to efforts to privatize Social Security are paying dividends.

What's this?  Obamacare is not the noose around Democrats' necks that Republicans hoped it would be?

We'll see.