by Jules Witcover

All through the last months of the fight over heath-care reform, President Obama was bombarded with one particular Republican complaint -- that he was wasting Congress's time on it when he should have been focusing on job creation.

Because he was insisting on pursuing his own prime legislative objective, the GOP leaders wailed, America's unemployment rate hovered around 10 percent, and higher in some states. Even passage in recent weeks of a new jobs bill, which many Republicans on Capitol Hill opposed, did not assuage the minority party.

Yet now that the health-care reform bill has been signed by the president, what are the Republican leaders and loudest of their tea party cheerleaders committing themselves to? A long campaign to keep that very same debate going on through the November congressional elections and beyond.

On at least three fronts -- in the courts, in Congress and in the public arena -- the Republicans have already begun a campaign to undo the reforms. A tea-party darling, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, has filed a suit in the federal court in Richmond arguing that a new state law bars forcing individuals to buy health insurance or pay a fine.

At the same time, Republican attorneys general in a dozen other states have joined another suit filed by Florida's chief law enforcement officer Bill McCollum, arguing that states can't be required to implement the new law without reimbursement. Still other groups are contending the whole reform law is unconstitutional.

In Congress, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has kicked off a "repeal and replace" campaign to reverse Obama's legislative triumph in favor of a plan that he and other Republican leaders argue would do the job better and cheaper. But theirs will be merely talking points between now and the fall elections, because of their minority status in Congress.

Meanwhile, in the streets and on conservative cable and radio talk shows, demands are being heard to "fire Nancy Pelosi," which also would require Republican recapture of the House in November. The personal ire being voiced against the Democratic speaker is a measure of her effectiveness in rallying her House troops, rescuing the bill from what earlier had seemed certain oblivion.

All this activity serves to underscore the negative image of the party of Ronald Reagan now decried by its Democratic critics as the Party of No. By keeping the health-care debate going as their chief argument for restoring their majority status on Capitol Hill, the Republicans will only complicate and inhibit Obama's ability to focus on the very problem they have complained he was neglecting: unemployment.

Obama's chief political strategist, David Axelrod, has said he welcomes the GOP challenge to fight the midterm congressional campaign over the health-care legislation that now is law. He notes that arguing against it at this point will be calling for denial of real benefits for which Americans are now or soon will be eligible.

The president's decision to hit the road barely after the ink has dried on his celebratory signing of the bill, broadcasting those benefits to voters in Iowa and across the country, can be the most effective counter to McConnell's "repeal and replace" call to roll back a history-making event.

Much will depend, to be sure, on evaluations of the success or failure of the new health-care provisions as time passes. Few concrete results will be clear on which to make that judgment by the time the country votes in November on the composition of the next Congress.

House and Senate Democrats whose constituents supported John McCain in 2008, and who themselves have just voted for the Obama bill, can expect to be particular targets of the Republican campaign to capture more seats. But they can also expect to see the president in their districts and states this fall, rewarding them for their support in the tough fight just won.

Obama no doubt will now throw himself aggressively into the task of job creation. But at the same time, with renewed confidence, he will be continuing to sell his health-care reforms against the determined GOP threat to the Democratic majority in Congress.

 

Available at Amazon.com:

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The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grassroots to the White House

 

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GOP Tactical Contradiction | Jules Witcover - Politics Today

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