House GOP strategy on ObamaCare: Talk tough. Do nothing. Blame the Senate. (Repeat.)
Boy, have Boehner and his folks got their talking points down. Talk about how bad ObamaCare is for the country and the American people. Lament the fact that Harry Reid is in charge in the Senate, and then mention how — by God — we’re going to tackle this thing IF we take the Senate majority in 2014. (Never mind that ObamaCare gets implemented in January 2014, and the election is in November 2014.)
Congresswoman Renee Ellmers — the less than articulate representative from North Carolina’s Second District — was on Bill Lumaye’s radio show Friday.
Those of you who have heard this woman speak before know that it can be quite a challenge to understand just what the hell she’s talking about. This afternoon, I gave it a shot. It sounds like Renee is taking both sides of the issue of exempting congressional staff from the requirements of ObamaCare. She seems to concur with our conclusion that ObamaCare is a disaster:
“I think people need to understand this. It’s going to change the workforce. It’s going to change the economy. It’s going to change health care. And it’s going to change every single American family in this country, and no one is going to benefit at the end of the day as a result of this.”
If she knows it’s going to be that godawful, why won’t she stand up and fight?
Lumaye asked whether she would join Senator Mike Lee and Congressman Mark Meadows’ efforts to defund ObamaCare:
“We’ve voted to repeal this thing over and over again. I’ll tell you one thing that has to change — is the majority in the Senate has got to change. We have .President Obama for the next three and a half years. I mean, that we already know. In 2014, if we can win the Senate back for the Republican majority that will be a big step.”
Let’s see. Obama has been in The White House and Harry Reid has been in charge in the Senate during all of those repeal votes. Why was it fine to do something then, but not NOW — when ObamaCare opponents have some real leverage?
I hate to say it after supporting Tea Party support to Ellmers but she sold her soul for a choice committee chair and some interviews on CNN. She campaigned on repeal-repeal-repeal. Not she’s into the GOP blame game so that the GOP can do their part to make sure the scam evolves to a single payer system just like the left wanted in the first place. Every scam perpetrated against the American people was done using the same strategy. Bush 1 lays the ground work for NAFTA; Bill Clinton gets it passes; Bill Clinton lays the ground work for DR-CAFTA and Bush 2 gets it passed. It’s the same play over and over. Shame most people can’t see it. We have two wings of the leftist party running this country.
Unfortunately, I don’t feel any assurance that the do-nothing strategy applies to immigration…if the GOP controlled House allows anything like that to pass, some of our more intrenched incumbents may find themselves not as invulnerable as they thought if GOP voters decide to stay home in droves next year. It could happen, I know of some who’ve actually already re-registered as Unaffiliated.
Going soft on issues can seriously damage a political party. Look at the collapse in the number of paid members in the British Conservative Party since wimp David Cameron became Prime Minister, or at their election results in the recent local elections across England and Wales where the upstart United Kingdom Independence Party snatched away almost half of the former Conservative Party voters. Polls in those elections say the number one reason that voters switched from Conservative to UKIP was that UKIP took a harder line on immigration.
When does the unaffiliated party hold their convention? What is their platform? When are the local precinct meetings ? My point being you have to become involved in one of the major parties to help make a change. instead being a do nothing stay home complainer.
“House GOP strategy on ObamaCare: Talk tough. Do nothing. Blame the Senate. (Repeat.)”
First, we should all acknowledge a truth – The establishment media since post-Carter (and to some not quite so aggressive degree before/during Carter) behaved more like the Democrat’s White House palace guard rather than political watchdogs. That is a simple fact.
This establishment media is a bigger foe to smaller government than the Democrats hiding behind the curtain. While the Democrats, essentially running all branches of government, are trapped within their ideology which cannot be defended in the arena of ideas, the establishment media preys upon the emotion of voters.
It has long been established that consumers purchase for two main reasons – needs and emotions. Using this analogy, Democrats are well aware of the reality that most Americans don’t ‘need’ Obamacare and in fact, Obamacare will be detrimental to many – the younger demographic that will be most burdened with paying for the healthcare of those with existing conditions and the elderly. It is also a well known fact by most, including many Democrats in the Senate responsible for its passage, that Obamacare is a “train wreck”.
However, the establishment media has targeted the emotions of voters, i.e. – the Republicans seek to cruelly deny others the ‘right’ of affordable health insurance/care to the least among us by defunding Obamacare. Never mind it has been demonstrated that conservatives donate considerably more of their personal wealth to charities/the poor than liberals. Which is the point of this commenter. Facts don’t matter….perceptions do. Without winning the Presidency, SCOTUS was our last hope for eliminating Obamacare. Ellmers along with other Representatives understand this all too well. If the GOP attempts to defund Obamacare, they will immediately become the establishment media’s ‘reason/cause’ for all of the ills associated with implementing Obamacare. As it stands now, the Obama-led Administration, the Reid-led Senate and the Pelosi-led House own Obamacare.
I agree with Elmers. At this point, the GOP can but tell the truth (“Talk tough”), bide their time (“Do nothing”) and cast the irrefutable blame squarely where it belongs (“Blame the Senate”) hoping to take the Senate back in 2014 and the White House in 2016. And while biding their time, the House GOP would be wise to take a page from the Dem playbook and focus on the emotions of the voters, for the ‘facts’ are sure to be lost in the establishment media.
As a quick example….take Benghazi. Rather than trying to accurately paint the deaths and serious injuries of Americans in Benghazi as a failure of leadership and subsequent cover-up by The Administration and State Department (the facts), focus on the ‘poor’ families of those killed in Benghazi — Don’t those dead American’s mothers, fathers, loved ones and their now fatherless little children deserve the truth (emotions)? Utilize the power of the publics emotions and leave it to the voters to determine just ‘who’ is preventing the truth about Benghazi from being revealed to the ‘devastated’ families/loved ones of those killed.
With the establishment media wolves running interference for the Dems, the GOP needs to be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves….much like Ellmers.
This must start now. And a good starting place would be on conservative blogs. Rather than developing stories targeting our own, we should be integrating the ’emotions’ of the undecided voters into our strategy of regaining power in 2014 and beyond. With such a Dem created/owned scandal-rich playing field presently, I see no reason not to now focus on the ‘victims’ of these many scandals, rather than some non-productive article about the shortcomings of our own. To do otherwise will result only in every day being yet another groundhog day for the GOP…talking tough, doing nothing and blaming others. (Repeat.)
What utter rubbish.
Conservatives have been standing up to the biased liberal media for decades. It takes fighters, not pathetic surrender monkeys like Ellmers and Boehner.
When Senator Jesse Helms first ran in 1972 and it subsequent campaigns, he told the voters that unlike most candidates, he did not have to run just against one opponent but against seven, his Democrat opponent and the editors of the six largest newspapers in the state. That is the way to do it. Do whimper in the corner about media bias like Ellmers and Boehner. Call them out on it. Get in their face. Let the public know they are getting horsecrap from the Democrat media.
I well remember what happened in Gingrich’s budget fight with Clinton. The government got shut down. That worthless POS Bob Dole caved, without even telling Gingrich he was going to do it. After Clinton was out of office, one of his top staffers revealed that Clinton was on the verge of giving in to the Republicans himself when that spineless fool Dole caved and he did not have to. All the GOP had to do was stick to its guns and it would have won, but cowardly establishment Republican Bob Dole stabbed them in the back and let Clinton win
Since Dole’s blunder, the GOP leadership has been afraid of fighting about anything and the Democrats know that so they roll over us. Indeed, their stupid crybaby tactics about conservatives wanting to hold the line on funding Obamacare, constantly gnashing their teeth about not wanting to shut down government only gives the liberal media more ammunition to blame Republicans for any shutdown, when if it was really played shrewdly, the blame should be placed on Obama.
Ellmers ”shrewd”??? What a joke. All Ellmers ever does is brownnose Boehner and Cantor. That’s not representing her district. That is selling out her district to the Washington DC establishment. And Ellmers is certainly not ”one of us”. We are conservatives and she is a beltway establishment rubberstamp. Ellmers well deserves being on the Club for Growth’s target list for defeat in the primary. She is nothing but Bob Etheridge in a skirt.
The Washington beltway establishment is gunning for conservatives in 2014. Boehner kicked a number of key conservatives off of key committees for refusing to be his flunkies. He tried to get the Ohio legislature to redistrict House Republican Study Committee (the conservative GOP caucus) out of Congress. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has said it will spend every nickel it has if necessary in primaries to defend squishy incumbents against conservative challenges., even if that means not having the resources for the general election. NRSC is also doing opposition research for its establishment twits to use against conservatives in open seat Senate races. .
This polling data from Heritage Action for America shows that the coward strategy of the GOP establishment is a politically stupid strategy:
http://www.redstate.com/2013/08/14/the-people-support-defunding-obamacare/
Renee has been an opportunist and fraud since she first ran for Congress. She only got elected because Bob Etheridge was dunk and rude – he reacted violently to a softball question. That video went viral and Renee got elected as a bogus Tea Party candidate. Check out the 2 videos I have with her just under 1 year ago. Back then she refused to admit the House had the power to de-fund Obamacare or Planned Parenthood. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSO6Wrrd-LY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJnOih2fHf8
She got elected because Etheridge voted for obamacare after 80% of the people that voted for him asked him not to. Nobody knew who she was they were just committed to getting him out because he voted for obamacare. I’m glade we did it but she would not have been my first choice to replace him.
Here is the solution for Renegade Renee Ellmers:
http://www.primarymycongressman.com/rep-renee-ellmers-nc-02/