Yesterday, PoliticOlogy ran down the various political fates of Obamacare now that it has finally exited the legislative, executive and judicial processes to become an electoral matter. Essentially: do Democrats run from or embrace the bill, and can Republicans use it to their advantage like they did in 2010?
An interesting test case for this is the Senate campaign of Heidi Heitkamp, running in the increasingly red state of North Dakota. GOP Super PACs have been hammering her for her pro-Obamacare stance, but rather than run from the bill, she embraced it with an earnest ad detailing her personal story of breast cancer and it resulting health costs. Surprisingly, the move seemed to have neutralized the issue: despite millions of dollars of attack ads, Heitkamp has showed no dip in the polls.
| Related: 5 Things You Need To Know About Obamacare's Political Fate |
That was before the SCOTUS ruling. Heitkamp, who has been cautious not to fully praise the ACA, sounded the move-on bell after last Thursday's decision. But most interesting was her opponent Rick Berg's reaction. Here are their two responses:
1. "There are good things in the health care bill, like keeping insurance companies from dropping people for pre-existing conditions, closing the Medicare Donut Hole, and allowing parents to keep their children covered until they turn 26."
2. "We need bipartisan health care reform that contains a frontier states provision, closes the donut hole, and doesn’t deny coverage for pre-existing conditions."
Pretty tough to tell those two apart, isn't it? (1 is Heitkamp, 2 is Berg.) For a guy who's been benefiting from millions in health care attack ads, Berg sure turned in favor of its individual provisions right quick.
There are pros and cons to Democratic congressional candidates getting specific with the ACA. The individual provisions listed above are popular, but the bill's fiscal impact is complicated and murky, and a Democratic candidate could easily get turned upside down during a Q & A. Heitkamp's probably wise to want to move on from the issue. But she once again demonstrated that treating the Democrats' primary legislative accomplishment of their generation like electoral anathema is the wrong way to go. Embrace it—and you could find your opponent doing the same.
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Follow on Ology: Evan McMurry | PoliticOlogy
Follow on Twitter: @evanmcmurry | @OlogyPolitics
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