Dana MIlbank: The Obamacare obsession

Dana MIlbank: The Obamacare obsession

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snip from article:

By most of the usual measures, President Obama has no business being re-elected. Here's why he might be anyway.

On Wednesday morning, as Senate Democratic leaders were scrambling to find a way to enact part of Obama's jobs bill, a dozen Republican lawmakers assembled outside the Capitol to complain about ... health care reform.

"Every day I get up, I do at least something to fight Obamacare," Rep. Steve King of Iowa announced to the cameras.

Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina proclaimed that the year-and-a-half-old law meant the 'socialization of medicine."

"Monstrous!" contributed Rep. Joe Pitts pf Pennsylvania. "This was a 2,733-page bill! ... No amendments! ... Partisan vote!"

Maybe so, gentlemen, but don't you have something better to do with your time?

The president's support is mired in the low 40s in opinion polls, and three-quarters of Americans think the country is on the wrong track — an obvious opportunity for the opposition party. But rather than exploit Obama's vulnerability on the economy, the tea party faithful are stuck in 2010, demanding repeal of the health care law.

That has allowed Obama, despite his own belated focus on unemployment, to jump way out in front of Republicans on the issue: In the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, Obama has a 15-point advantage over congressional Republicans on job creation, and his jobs package enjoys majority support. The Republicans who assembled Wednesday on a patch of the Capitol lawn known as the "Senate Swamp" claimed that they, too, have a jobs plan: repealing Obamacare. "If the president wants a jobs bill, this is it: Repealing Obamacare is a jobs bill," proposed Rep. Jeff Landry of Louisiana. "We don't have to go through all the shenanigans of him coming up here and talking to a joint session of Congress."

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/dana-milbank/article_961692b3-a392-5307-a18f-f09853099397.html#ixzz1a7aD6isS