Despite the supposed efforts of Senate Democrats and the White House to change the subject — first through a historic change to the Senate’s filibuster rules and then by reaching a tentative deal with Iran on its nuclear program — Republicans have pledged to keep the country focused on the disastrous rollout of Obamacare.
It’s a trainwreck. The president broke his promises. Democrats are running away from it.
No distraction will deter them — and they’ve got a plan. As the New York Times reported last week, the House GOP has a detailed blueprint for how its members should be messaging about the health care reform law. It encourages a focus on broken promises and anecdotes of the law’s negative impact. And, by and large, the GOP is operating by that playbook: highlighting national and local new reports of Obamacare problems, pushing accounts from people deemed losers under the new law, and trumpeting the troubles of HealthCare.gov.
The White House and Democrats have their own messaging push, too, including conference calls with reporters nearly every weekday. But for those who don’t receive press releases day in and day out from the GOP, it might be hard to appreciate how relentless their messaging push has been. Here is a sampling of what’s flowed into our inbox in just the last week (except for one particularly good example), culled from House and Senate Republican offices, as well as the Republican National Committee.
It’s a trainwreck
The president broke his promises.
Democrats are running away from the law and trying to change the subject.
