U.S. Senate candidate Jane Norton is feeling heat again on the right Monday. Although health care reform legislation passed Sunday, the battle against it continues around the country and in Colorado. Attorney General John Suthers today joined a lawsuit targeting the health bill on Constitutional grounds and local right bloggers are pressing for Norton to pledge to work to repeal the bill should Coloradans send her to Washington.
In what is becoming a cliche of the Senate primary race, Norton rival Weld County D.A. Ken Buck immediately came out in support of repeal while Norton has left the right hanging: already it is roughly 24 hours after the health reform vote, which in internet time makes Norton about a week late in responding.
The calls for candidate pledges came partly in reaction to mainstream analysts suggesting that the deal is done on health reform and that talk of repeal is just that, talk. Exasperated conservative writer David Frum wrote that today’s discussion of repeal is the kind of illusory overheated talk that has made it impossible for leaders on the right to get anything done in Washington.
No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?
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I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government…. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.
At Colorado’s People’s Press Collective conservative-libertarian blogsite, the passion was as real as the rhetoric was heated.
The Independence Institute’s Jon Caldara:
On Sunday night the US House of Representatives passed what we call “Obama-care.” This is one of the darkest moments in American history.
Rob Natelson:
If there were any doubt that our constitutional protection has been lost, that doubt should be removed by the congressional vote subjecting the personal health care decisions of every American to central governmental authority.
Natelson goes on to cite the phony “New England Journal of Medicine” story on how half the doctors in the nation will now stop practicing.
Mr Bob:
Obama and Pelosi just started a war in this country by using Chicago politics to make healthcare a supposed right rather than a commodity (as it always has been in this free country).
And Ben DeGraw:
It’s the day after the 2700-page Obama Care monstrosity passed the Congress, proving there really is no such thing as a pro-life Democrat and that Leftist Democrat leaders were determined to shove the highly unpopular taxes, mandates and controls down the throat of the American people … now what?
DeGraw asks concerned citizens to support candidates willing to take the repeal pledge because “the cause of liberty and limited government needs us now more than ever.”
He links to a RedState blog post that calls Norton out specifically:
So there should be no tolerance for any Republican, even if he or she has a 100% ACU career rating, who equivocates or attempts to sit on the fence with a finger in the air – all (Ayotte, Norton, Castle, etc.) must come out full-fledged for repeal. We need to make it clear to Michael Steele or whoever it is at the RNC that no Republican who is in any way conflicted about whether this should be repealed should receive a cent of GOP donor money.
These posts were mostly all written well before noon. What has Norton been doing all day?
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