GOP peddles snake oil about Florida election: Lessons from last night’s race

[DonViejo]

Republicans claim that Alex Sink's loss in Florida's 13th House district means Obamacare is toxic. Here's the truth

BRIAN BEUTLER

When I proposed that Republicans plan to use their structural advantage this election cycle to claim a mandate to destroy Obamacare, no matter how much or little Obamacare actually helps them in the November Senate elections, I was met with howls of mockery and derision from people who must now pretend to be unaware that there was a Democratic landslide in 2008 — and that everyone who follows politics seriously has known 2014 would be a rough year for Democrats since Obama’s first election.

One of those people is Dan McLaughlan, better known to political twitter as the smart but at times acerbic conservative @baseballcrank.

Over the weekend he wrote this post, which I believe was reprinted on the front page of the conservative site Red State, citing the fact that Obamacare’s poll numbers are indeed underwater, to refute my argument that the GOP strategy is to run on Obamacare irrespective of the advantage it confers. They’re probably going to win a bunch of seats no matter what they center their campaign around, so why not center it around the issue on which they hope to make the biggest imprint in 2015 and beyond?

His response isn’t entirely a non sequitur — I should’ve been more clear about the fact that Obamacare isn’t shaping up to be some major Democratic asset. So it’s not as if Republicans have no other political rationale for making the strategic choice they’ve made. I think a fair way to put it is that running against Obamacare is better than running on nothing at all, but that’s actually a binary choice they’ve made for themselves this cycle.

However, if conservatives are being honest, they need to first acknowledge that — all issues aside — the 2014 map is vastly friendlier to Republicans than Democrats, and argue from there. Do they really think that absent Obamacare, Democrats would be sitting pretty? Or that a better rollout would’ve changed the map? Do they think Obamacare will be the difference between zero (or a couple) Senate pickups and the six or more they need to control the Senate? It’s entirely feasible to me that Republicans will retake the Senate in 2014, and even that Obamacare might account for the margin. But I have yet to hear many reasoned arguments for any of those individual propositions on the right. All I hear are fundamentally dishonest arguments that wish the structural advantage out of existence.

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http://www.salon.com/2014/03/12/gop_peddles_snake_oil_about_florida_election_lessons_from_last_nights_race/