In Which Zandar Answers Your Burning Questions

Josh Marshall asks:

I don't think Newt Gingrich necessarily speaks for the GOP these days. But he said over the weekend that he's sure every Republican in 2010 and 2012 will run on a pledge to repeal Health Care Reform. And though he was less definitive, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnel said close to the same thing. Now given the relative unpopularity of the bill at this moment (which I strongly suspect will change) and its extreme unpopularity among partisan Republicans, that's not a very surprising statement. What's interesting to me, though, is that Democrats started saying last week that they plan to run on the same platform -- namely, that if you vote for Republicans they'll repeal Health Care Reform.

In a sense, none of this should surprise us. This is pretty much how things should be -- you get the main issue of the day and the different parties vote for and against. But it's pretty seldom that's the case. It's not that common that both parties think the same issue is a winning one for them.

I think Dems can win this issue if they pick out the changes that are overwhelming popular -- bans on denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions, etc. But what has to be worrisome from a Democratic standpoint is the issue Gingrich focuses in on here ...

I suspect every Republican running in '10 and again in '12 will run on an absolute pledge to repeal this bill. The bill--most of the bill does not go into effect until '13 or '14, except on the tax increase side; and therefore, I think there won't be any great constituency for it. And I think it'll be a major campaign theme.

How do you develop a constituency for a bill before people have seen it in effect?

Really, Josh?  You don't get the plan here?  You blame every health care related death, every premium dollar spent, every nightmare story, ever insurance company rejection, everything wrong with the system on this bill, and then you say "Unless it is repealed before 2013/2014, it will be far, far worse."

In short, you lie.  It's what Republicans do.  If you haven't noticed, for the last two decades the GOP has set up quite the operation here based on constituency building through abject bullshit.  Now here's the great part:  Republicans are betting they'll win running against this and that you'll want the status quo back by 2012.  Democrats are betting the opposite.

Logically there's no way the Dems can lose on this.  But this is politics, not logic.  So yes, the GOP will be running to repeal this bill, and so will state GOP Republicans, who will run on making sure their state is excluded from all provisions and that they simply ignore the federal laws.  It will succeed in a number of states, I assume.

[UPDATE 1:25 PM] Greg Sargent reminds us that the Teabaggers now have their battle cry for the next several years.

It’s now becoming clear that this could be a major issue for Republicans in 2010: the Tea Party movement, as well as high-profile conservatives, are going to demand that candidates call for a full repeal of the Dem healthcare reform bill, presuming it passes.

Multiple figures on the right are beginning to make this demand explicit.

In an interview with me just now, Max Pappas, the Vice President for Public Policy of Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks, said that if the bill passes, politicians should call for a full repeal.

“This has an unusual ability to be repealed, and the public is on that side.” he said. “The Republicans are going to have to prove that they are worthy of their votes.”

Again, this will accompanied by state Teabagger effort to nullify health care reform. The cry of "leave it to the states to determine their own healthcare" when of course state budgets are strapped across the board is exactly what the Teabaggers want:  a helter-skelter patchwork where some states have their own plan, some states have the federal plan, and some states have no plan.  It will effectively doom the federal plan, which is the point.