Remember when Atrios and I used to write over and over again that a mandate requiring people to buy health insurance from private, for-profit, and hated insurance corporations would be massively unpopular? Chalk another one up for the Dirty Hippies:

Voters in swing states stand overwhelmingly on one side of the debate: Three of four voters, including a majority of Democrats and of liberals, say the law is unconstitutional.
That reaction is almost instinctual, says Stuart Altman, a professor of national health policy at Brandeis University who has joined two briefs supporting the law. “People say, ‘The government should not mandate that I have to do anything.’ “

He faults the Obama team for not responding effectively enough to what he calls a “torrent” of opposition and misinformation.
“You have this drumbeat of negative comments and almost no positive,” he says. “You’re relying on the president to do the selling, and he’s moved on to other things. The congressional people on the Democratic side are not supporting it. They’re either being very quiet or running away from it themselves because they’re afraid of getting tarnished.”

Overall, this USA TODAY/Gallup Poll appears to have some strange results. For example, it’s the only reputable poll out there that shows the president behind the Republicans in his reelection campaign. Something is probably a little weird with their sample, but it’s clear that there’s a problem for the Democrats when Gallup’s sample shows 75% of voters in swing states (including a majority of liberals) think the health insurance mandate is unconstitutional. Professor Altman is correct; the president and the Democrats need to go on offense on the Affordable Care Act.

An example of an unpopular policy that has been turned around and become a political plus is the auto bailout. AFSCME is running pro-auto bailout ads in Ohio. The idea is to instill the impression that the auto bailout was a fabulous success (which it was) and that anyone who opposed it has poor judgment. The failure to tout the success of the Affordable Care Act stems from a variety of factors, including progressive disappointment with the lack of a public option, the step-by-step implementation, a scanter empirical evidentiary case that it has been a giant success (relative to the auto-bailout), and sheer exhaustion with the issue after the year-long effort to pass the bill.

But it’s clear now that real damage has been done, and it’s bad enough to put the legislation in peril. If most of the country thinks the bill is unconstitutional and doesn’t much care if the whole thing is repealed, the conservative-led SCOTUS will surely respond. What I suggest is a massive ad campaign that uses real beneficiaries of the health care bill to hammer home the idea that the bill is completely awesome and that anyone who opposed it is a stupid moron.

Make the bill popular, sell it is a the best thing ever, and the silly talk about constitutionality will go the way of birth certificate-talk.

But the Dems need to get on it because it takes time to change perceptions and the Court is going to hear the first arguments in the case about a month from today.