Is G.O.P. ‘Staring Death in the Face’ After Repeal? Democrats Hope So

Mod: Interesting New York Times article detailing the politics behind yesterday's contentious Obamacare repeal in the GOP controlled House of Representatives. This still needs to go to the Senate where repeal will face even more difficult challenges. 

Is G.O.P. ‘Staring Death in the Face’ After Repeal? Democrats Hope So (New York Timeslink): No one knows better than House Democrats how a contentious health care vote can exact a steep political price — losing control of the House in the first midterm election of an untested new president’s tenure for example.

As they hooted derisively at their Republican colleagues on Thursday after a narrow, party-line approval of legislation to roll back the Obama-era health care law, Democrats glimpsed the mirror image of their own politically disastrous health care experience. They also saw a prime opportunity to avenge their ugly 2010 loss and possibly recapture the House majority.

“I think they are staring death in the face,” Representative Gerald E. Connolly, Democrat of Virginia, said about the political prospects of dozens of House Republicans who were persuaded to back the bill by Republican leaders anxious to deliver a legislative win. “They asked their vulnerable members to take an enormous gamble and risk on an act of faith that I guarantee will not pay off.”

Relieved Republicans celebrated on the House floor and at the White House and said they had been in danger of retaliation from their own conservative base if they had not delivered on the pledge to repeal the law they had been promising to strike from the books for seven years. They say their candidates will have the experience and resources to fight off Democratic challengers.

But Democrats were confident many colleagues across the aisle would come to regret this vote, particularly in an election cycle where the president’s party is typically on the defensive and when Republicans will need to protect nearly two dozen districts carried by Hillary Clinton last year. Those districts alone, including some in places like California, Texas and Illinois, are almost enough to determine who runs the House.

“Republicans kicked a hornet’s nest, and it is not too soon to begin saying goodbye to some of my Republican colleagues from moderate districts, because this will cost them dearly,” said Representative Luis V. Gutiérrez, Democrat of Illinois.

Mod: The rest of this article can be found at the link posted above.

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