I don't want to dwell too long on the botched politics of ObamaCare 1.0.This one is a pure-d fuck up by the people at HHS. You simply cannot blow it when the presidents name is on the sign in front of the building. The Democratic Party cannot look like the Romney Campaign on election day, stuck with a beached whale. This is now, and will forever be, Democratic Party law. We're responsible and we have an obligation as the party of government to win elections over it. I'm assuming all of our folks in the White House get this and are kicking whatever asses need to be kicked to fix this shit.
Okay enough of that. Moving on to the next, ObamaCare 2.0 rollout.
1. LOCALIZE OBAMACARE
When this thing is fixed, the Democratic Party establishment had better be talking about this in ways that Congressional candidates, candidates for Governor, and even state house candidates can be proud of. That means providing specifics that a candidate can tout. In other words, a candidate for a state house seat had better be able to get a clearly defined set of talking points about the number of people in Whatever County who now have health insurance. There better be local stories of folks who got illnesses treated and costs lowered. And a plan to put that through to local media and political staff.
Obama isn't on the ballot anymore. We're done with him as far as elections go. This is Democratic Party time, not Obamatime. This next election has to be about local candidates and them being able to DEFEND THEIR CONSTITUENTS from the GOP. That's how we turn out our base.
2. PUT THE GOP ON DEFENSE
You all know I never tire of beating the ever loving crap out of Republicans. I detest them to the point of illness. I wish I could deport all of them, but I don't know what country in the world would be happy to have them. So when ObamaCare 2.0 rolls out, what I want every Democrat in the country saying is this: Where's yours?
We have our buggy website, but its working now. Where's your healthcare site? You guys have a bunch of states with a bunch of GOP governors and a bunch of GOP legislatures. Show us what you did. You hate ObamaCare. Gotcha. Show us your GOP plan in practice.
You'll get silence because they aren't doing shit and don't give a shit. And that point should be repeated by all Democrats up and down the ballot. That's how we turn out our base.
So that's how we win in 2014. Thanks to the shutdown, we're back in the hunt. I, for one, can't bring myself to hyperventilate after just a month of ObamaCare. But the relaunch has to be damn good and targeted at our base. And I suspect it will be.