Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Rick Santorum Is Not The Ideal Candidate To Go One On One With Obama On ObamaCare

With the United States Supreme Court hearing arguments on the constitutionality of ObamaCare, Rick Santorum used this historic moment to launch another attack on RomneyCare:
Santorum then drew some unwanted headlines this past weekend and Monday after he said that Romney is the "worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama." He claimed he was only talking about the health care issue. He later cursed at a New York Times reporter who asked about the charge. 
Undeterred, Santorum pounded the issue again on the Supreme Court steps Monday afternoon: "If we run this campaign, which we will, on Obamacare and we're successful, there's no doubt Obamacare will be repealed in one form or another, and that's not going to be the case with Governor Romney because he can't make it the argument, because if he makes it the argument, the Obama machine will turn it right back on him."
Rick Santorum's claim that Mitt Romney is a bad candidate to go one on one with Obama on the issue of ObamaCare is odd given that Santorum was one of the many conservatives who have supported RomneyCare in the past. Moreover, Rick Santorum supported an employer mandate in which his plan would mandate that employers be required to offer their workers a chance to purchase health insurance. If Rick Santorum decides to go after Obama on ObamaCare, the President will have no trouble returning fire during the general election.
 
Rick Santorum's claims that Mitt Romney can't make the case for overturning ObamaCare because Obama will turn it right back on him is also bizzare. Mitt Romney has repeatedly promised that he will repeal ObamaCare on the first day in office as President. Recently, on March 22,  Mitt released an article reaffirming his promise to repeal ObamaCare and outlining additional steps he would take to reform America's health care system. Mitt Romney has already made the argument that he will repeal ObamaCare and Obama can't attack Romney on that point without getting dragged into a debate on the Constitutionality of his health care plan which is something that Obama himself may not want to do since a large majority of Americans do not support ObamaCare.
 
In fact, if there was any candidate who is ideal for going against Obama on the issue of ObamaCare, its Mitt Romney:
"The central tenet of the “Anybody-But-Romney” conservative theology is this article of faith: Nominating the former Massachusetts governor will take away the Republican Party’s best 2012 issue — because “Romneycare” is so like “Obamacare.” ABR true believers lump the two plans together, with the epithet “Obamneycare.” 
This conservative faith is wrong, however. To the extent that attacks on President Barack Obama’s health care reform are good politics, the candidate best able to make them is Mitt Romney. 
Since he orchestrated and then signed the Massachusetts health care law, Romney is uniquely qualified to lead the GOP attacks against the federal health care reform bill. 
Why? He would be the first GOP nominee in nearly 50 years with a proven track record on health care who has been praised by Democrats — including the president — as fair and compassionate. He can’t be demonized as an out-of-touch, uncompassionate, hard-right ideologue on this issue. 
Americans have been telling pollsters since 1965 that they favor Democrats over Republicans when asked whom they trust on health care issues. That was when President Lyndon B. Johnson and congressional Democrats passed the historic Medicare program — over the objections of many high-profile Republican opponents, including future President Ronald Reagan. 
This political landscape meant GOP presidential nominees have regularly been put on the defensive, sometimes even demonized, on health care issues. Rick Santorum and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich are typical in this regard." 
"...Think of the advantage that this situation gives Romney: Even if the health care law is ruled constitutional, legitimate political questions remain because it is not fully operative for two more years. Only “Romneycare” is a public-private-sector plan in full operation, praised by his opponents — like Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a top Obama ally. By embracing a role for government in addressing health care, Romney has neutralized traditional winning Democratic arguments.
The Obama campaign has one overriding aim — paint any GOP nominee as out of touch with the problems facing average Americans. “Romneycare” presents a problem for this narrative. If the former head of Bain Capital is allegedly the “same ole” GOP rich guy worshipping at the altar of social Darwinism, how does the “compassionate party” explain away using “Romneycare” as a model?"
There is one fundamental difference between RomneyCare and ObamaCare that people on the left and on the right somehow fail to grasp. Its a difference that Mitt Romney has been making for many months now and its a distinction that the attorneys opposing ObamaCare in the Supreme Court explained today:
If the Supreme Court overturns the individual mandate based on the theory argued by Paul Clement, the attorney representing the 26 states that filed lawsuits against Obamacare, Mitt Romney's presidential campaign could get a big boost from the ruling. 
Clement told the court, just as Romney has told Republican primary voters, that states have the power to enact individual mandates wheras the federal government has no such authority.
"I do think the States could pass this mandate," Clement said today in response to a question from Justice Sonia Sotomayor. "[T]he States can do it because they have a police power, and that is a fundamental difference between the States on the one hand and the limited, enumerated Federal Government on the other." 
Romney has argued throughout the presidential primary that Massachusetts has the ability, under the 10th Amendment, to enact an individual mandate for health insurance.
Democrats prepping for the general election have attacked Romney for supporting the individual mandate in his state while opposing President Obama's mandate. 
If the Supreme Court agrees that states can enact mandates, but rules that Obama's mandate is an unconstitutional infringement on individual liberty, then Romney will have a solid rebuttal.
ObamaCare will certainly be an issue during the 2012 general election since the Supreme Court won't publicly release their decision until June which is a few months before election day. Romney's defense of RomneyCare is a solidly constitutional argument and whereas Obama's defense of ObamaCare isn't. The contrast between state's rights and governmental overreach will be made very clear if Mitt Romney is the Republican nominee.  As a result, Mitt Romney is the best and strongest defender of state's rights and economic liberty and is the ideal candidate to go head to head with Obama. 
 
This article has been cross posted from Conservative Samizdat

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3 comments:

Dave said...

This is a very good article, although it's a little weak in its assertion that Santorum supported the main ideas of MassCare.....something he's not up to, intellectually.

Gingrich did, which is indisputable. And it's also indisputable that MassCare didn't bother Santorum when he endorsed Romney in 2008, as this points out.

Good job.

Anonymous said...

Fine overview of the "individual mandate" issue, on which some Republicans (including Santorum) talk out of both sides of their mouths.

It has never ceased to amaze me that many of the staunchest supporters of the federal Constitution's 10th Amendment go absolutely ballistic over the STATE of Massachusetts' duly enacted ONE-STATE-ONLY health care law, which includes an "individual mandate" applicable IN MASSACHUSETTS ONLY. These GOP politicians' inconsistency on the 10th Amendment reeks of hypocrisy (or weak intellect, take your pick)--yet the right-wing media echo chamber almost never points it out.

Chief Justice Roberts and Plaintiffs' attorney Paul Clement pointed out yesterday what any first year law student would already grasp. An "individual mandate" duly adopted by a state legislature for the people of that state alone has a very different legal foundation from the foundation on which the "individual mandate" in the federal law called Obamacare must attempt to rely.

As a lawyer, Santorum knows this. As a politician, he twists the law, the facts, and even his own former positions to attack the man he publicly supported a mere 4 years ago, Mitt Romney.

Superb Jon said...

Santorum prefers Obama to Romney because Obama was raised by a Catholic grandmother. Vatican Osservatore Romano editor Vian said on May 18th that Obama "is not a pro-abortion president" - proves stand to encourage Catholics to breed and to encourage non-Catholics to abort out of spite. The Vatican likes the abortion status quo in the USA for this reason. Their purpose is only conquest, not faith. Carolignian Brzezinski spawned Zia al Haq, Khomeini, and bin Laden - breaks up superpowers via Aztlan and Kosovo as per Joel Garreau's Nine Nations. Brzezinski, Buckley and Buchanan winked anti-Semitic votes for Obama, delivered USA to Pope's feudal basket of Bamana Republics. Michael Pfleger and Joe Biden prove Obama is the Pope's boy. Obama is half a Kearney from County Offaly in Ireland. Talal got Pontifical medal as Fatima mandates Catholic-Muslim union against Jews (Francis Johnson, Great Sign, 1979, p. 126), Catholic Roger Taney wrote Dred Scott decision. John Wilkes Booth, Tammany Hall and Joe McCarthy were Catholics. Now Catholic majority Supreme Court. Catholics Palmisano, Grasso, Damato, Langone, Mozilo, Ranieri, Dioguardi, Palmieri destroyed American industry with their casuistrous ethics. Subprime construction mobsters had hookers deliver mortgages to banks. McCain's Keeting started it all. Brzezinski set up Arab Spring and Zia, so why surprised bin Laden was in Sineurabia code? Pakistanis descend from weasels who sold their Hindu brothers into hundreds of years of islamic slavery. That is why FIAT supplied Iran and every Catholic is like a Manchurian Candidate programmed to kill their best friend of they felt the "Holy Father" required it. They find American cars too advanced to use or their mechanics to fix. Ellis Island Popecrawlers brought in FDR. Since Pio Nino banned voting they consider our Constitution and laws immoral and illegitimate and think nothing of violating them or passing legislation that undermine them. They believe that they can not be fully loyal to their superiors if they do not go the extra stretch and break the law intentionally. Their slovenly, anti-intellectual work ethic produces vacuous, casuistrous blather and a tangle of hypocritical, contradictory regulations. Their clubhouse purges provided praetorian training for corporate misgovernance. They sided with the enemy in both World Wars and now, too. Every American boom has been caused by an Evangelical Revival and every major Depression by the domination of new Catholic immigrants. NYC top drop outs: Hispanic 32%, Black 25%, Italian 20%. NYC top illegals: Ecuadorean, Italian, Polish. Ate glis-glis but blamed plague on others, now lettuce coli. Their bigotry most encouraged terror yet they reap most security funds. View this life as casuistry training to survive purgatory. Rabbi circumcises lower, Pope upper brain. Tort explosion by glib casuistry. Hollywood Joe Kennedy had Bing Crosby proselytize. Bazelya 1992 case proves PLO-IRA-KLA links. Our enemy is the Bru666elles Sineurabia feudal Axis and the only answer is alliance with Israel and India. They killed six million Jews, a million Serbs, half a million freemasons, a quarter million Gypsies, they guided the slaughter of Assyrians and Armenians, and promoted the art of genocide throughout the world now they are relentless in their year to canonize nazi pope. 9/11 was Yugo Crimean blowback: Napoleon started the crusade against the Photius Heresy to avenge his uncle, Clinton wanted to cover Pacelli's war crimes. They had no qualms hijacking American policy in Vietnam or Balkans to papal ends, but when American interests opposed those of the papacy in Iraq and Iran, they showed their true fangs (Frum, Unpatriotic Conservatives).