For Their Next Trick, Democrats Will Attempt to Distract You from the Issues with Obamacare

The problem right now is “Obamacare, Rollout of,” which sucked, but might be getting better, who knows? There’s more rollout to come. This primarily affects three red-state Democrats in the South (Mary L. Landrieu in Louisiana, Mark Pryor in Arkansas, and Kay Hagan in North Carolina) who each voted for the Affordable Care Act and still support it. And so it’s also a question about Barack Obama, in the South, in the sixth year of his presidency—rarely a good question one for the White House incumbent’s party, barring a robust 5 percent economic growth per quarter (which doesn’t happen anymore).

The New York Times writes about the problem today:

“Democrats are fighting against history in most of the South,” said Thomas F. Schaller, a professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who wrote a book on Democrats and the South called Whistling Past Dixie.

“You can still elect a Democrat to a statewide office in the South,” he added, “if you have the right candidate, with the right biography, in the right cycle. And then hopefully you get some help from the Republicans’ nominating a bad candidate. But that’s a lot of ifs.”

Next year, Democrats will face not only a general hostility to the national party among Southern white voters, but also a keen dislike of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Representative Bill Cassidy, one of the Republicans opposing Ms. Landrieu, has an attack ad that calls her “Barack Obama’s rubber stamp.” She and her two Southern colleagues in the Senate voted for the health plan and have reiterated their support, though they have also rushed to criticize the administration’s handling of the rollout and pushed for modifications. Republicans are trying to exploit the opening, insisting that each of the incumbents muttered the decisive “aye” that allowed the law to pass, which was approved 60 to 39.

“Pryor is the 60th vote, Hagan is the 60th vote, Landrieu is the 60th vote,” said Merle Black, a professor of political science at Emory University in Atlanta. “Everybody is the 60th vote.”

The key, as Schaller says, may be “Republicans nominating a bad candidate.” Senate Democrats have been saved in the last two cycles by an odd Republican party that nominates weirdos who love things like rape.

So what are Senate Democrats to do? Well, there’s making sure Obamacare doesn’t crumble under the weight of its own convoluted design over the next year. Because if it does, then what we’ll have is a Republican landslide, and not just in the South. Widely distributed economic and job growth would also help, in general. (Ha ha, I know. A boy can dream!)

National Journal writes today about another issue that Democrats appear to be shaping into one of their top messages going into next year: a big hike in the minimum wage, to over $10 per hour. The article lays out the case: minimum wage hikes poll well. Democratic state legislatures across the country are already passing their own raises. We’re seeing action on the ground with worker protests at fast-food chains and big-box retailers, which have been getting plenty of coverage in the press. Republicans look mean—those mean Republicans!—resisting it.

But the answer to whether this issue can save Democrats is already cooked into the headline: “Can Democrats Make 2014 About the Minimum Wage?” By the rules of the Internet political commentary, the answer to any headline question is always “No.” And especially if the focus on the minimum wage is a tactical move to “shift the conversation” away from Obamacare, which it quite obviously is. My guess is that despite the handiwork of Democratic politicians and consultants out there, it’s going to be hard to make the American people simply forget that Obamacare exists over the next year. Their fates are tied to it. They have to make it work — or pray that it works itself out — or they are screwed.