We get it. Republicans don’t like the Affordable Care Act, aka ‘Obamacare’. But over the last few days I’ve noticed a new trend, or at least the frequency of it seems to be increasing. Let’s call it Obamacare McCarthyism, a new intra-Republican political cudgel cued up for the 2014 political season, in which different anti-Obamacare Republicans attack each other for either being crypto-supporters of Obamacare, being Obamacare-curious or even just having earlier periods of Obamacare confusion.
Things got started yesterday with Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), who, despite being very conservative, is probably the only Republican candidate for the Georgia Senate nomination who doesn’t make a habit of selling really crazy crap. Yesterday he said he doesn’t think it’s “the responsible thing to do” to simply let Obamacare collpase. Today he was attacked at Redstate.com for having “surrendered on Obamacare.”
Today Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), who’s being haplessly primaried by Liz Cheney, was hit by an ad from the conservative SuperPac Americans for Job Security which quotes him from a 2010 conference on Health Care Reform in which he said “I like the exchanges. These exchanges can be good.”
“Good?” a voiceover in the ad responded. “Wyoming’s Obamacare exchange has the most expensive premiums in the country, and it’s marred by glitches.”
The ad ends with the tagline “tell Mike Enzi we don’t like these liberal, Big Government Obamacare exchanges.”
Notably, Enzi is one of the most conservative members of the Senate, though he was the most conservative member of the so-called health care reform Gang of Six in 2009, who basically delayed things for 6 months or so before the White House realized there would be zero Republican support for Health Care Reform.
I know this is happened before. But I think it’s a coming thing. Let me know if you see more examples.
