I wonder if this is a bluff:
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said in a press briefing at the Ronald Reagan Republican Center today that his party will offer repeated points of order on the Senate floor challenging the legitimacy of budget reconciliation items in a package of fixes to the Senate-passed health care bill. He said his candidates in competitive races from California to Florida “should and will run on” repealing the legislation.
Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said Democrats may want to pass the measure and move on, but the GOP will keep pressing at it to “make sure that health care is the No. 1 issue that the election is won or lost by” in the fall.
I don’t doubt the first part…that the Republicans will make the reconciliation process as painful as possible (provided we even get to that point). But, assuming that the health care reforms pass, will the Republicans actually campaign on repealing them?
I suppose they probably will. After all, they seem to believe their own bullshit half of the time. I think they’ll actually run on a broader message of creeping socialism, going after the bank bailout that Bush originated, and the spending in the stimulus that “didn’t create a single job,” and “government takeover” of General Motors and Chrysler, and the mandate in the health care reforms.
What will the Democrats respond with? That’s the problem.
