Unskewed All Over Again

Republicans have been driven to frothing hatred by Obamacare surpassing its 7 million signups goal, to the point where they're openly accusing the President of lying and daring him to prove otherwise.

Dean Chambers, notorious unskewer of 2012 presidential election polls, has his critical eye on a new metric: Obamacare enrollment.

"The Obamacare enrollments numbers are bogus. They don't even know how many have really paid for what they supposedly signed up for, and the 'back end' for the billing process of the Obamacare web site is not even functioning yet," he wrote in a Tuesday post on the law's 7 million announced sign-ups.

Sadly, that's about as far as Chambers gets in explaining his rationale. The Obama administration lied about unemployment to win reelection, so of course, they would lie about enrollment for the president's signature health care law, he says. The detailed explanations thattypified his 2012 coverage are nowhere to be found.

It's worth remembering that Chambers has company in high places, including the No. 4 Republican senator who accused the Obama administration of "cooking the books."

As Steve M points out, Republicans will simply add this to their list of perceived grievances that Obama and the Democrats must pay dearly for.

I think they'll find a way to demonize Obamacare forever. Look at what they've done with abortion. Look at how they continue to attack the social safety net as a "hammock." They demonize abortion and public assistance as immoral and destructive to society -- as long as a significant chunk of the white heartland gets health care from either work or Medicare, they can do that forever with Obamacare as well. And Obamacare has enough flaws that the number of people who love it may always be less than the number of people Republicans encourage to loathe it. (And if happy beneficiaries are poorer than the general population, they're less likely to vote than the middle-class haters.)

He has a point.  Obamacare will motivate millions more Republicans -- and Democrats, mind you -- to vote against the D's over the years than it will motivate people to vote for them, because as Democrats, we're not empowered by our problems, we whine and submit to them like cowards.

Republicans on the other hand are fully powered by hatred and will use this for a long long time.