Morning Bell: We’re Winning The Health Care Debate
Conn Carroll /
When any White House knows they are a losing a public debate, they turn to sympathetic journalists to try and reframe the debate in a way that is more advantageous to their policy goals. So after consulting with his best White House sources, The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder wrote under the headline How Conservatives Are Blowing Their Chance, Sunday:
“Democrats are beginning to notice that opponents of health care reform have discredited themselves. … The media, being a collection of different megaphones, reported on the town hall meetings in one of two ways, both damaging to Republicans. Either they credulously reported the louder, angrier voices (inherently damaging to Republicans in this case) or they reported on the political architecture of the town hall meetings, which plays down the substance of the protests. … The White House’s goal was to prevent the Blue Dogs from panicking. The swing constituents in these congressional districts aren’t angry Republicans, and the Blue Dogs know this. They’re political independents for whom the sanctity of the process is important.”
So that is the official White House spin. But what is the reality? Two new polls came out yesterday from Gallup and Pew, and both of them show that in direct contradiction to Ambinder’s “analysis”, the townhall protests are, in fact, making political independents more sympathetic to opponents of Obamacare. Pew found that of those Americans following the townhalls, 61%, including 64% of independents, said they think the way people have been protesting is appropriate. And according to Gallup, 34% of independents say the townhalls have made them more sympathetic to opponents of Obamacare, compared to only 23% of independents who say the townhalls have made them less sympathetic. Equally important, Gallup found that more Americans believe the townhall protesters are motivated by their internal beliefs and not stirred up by “political activists” crating “organized opposition.” (more…)