It’s NOT the economy, Stupid!


That is the contention of Jeffrey Anderson in today’s New York Post:



Democrats wish it were about the economy. Polls show that voters still blame the downturn more on President George W. Bush than on President Obama or the Democratic Congress. Sure, the Democrats haven’t turned the economy around, but things also haven’t gotten markedly worse. How could they face historic losses over an economic situation that voters think they inherited more than they created?


What is are the midterms really about if not the economy? Anderson writes:



Above all else, the coming election is about ObamaCare. …



The evidence is clear. Look at House districts where you’d expect a Democrat to be vulnerable — districts that, based on results in the last three presidential elections, lean Republican or lean Democratic by no more than 5 percentage points. In 48 such districts where polls are available, a Democrat is running for re-election.



Based on the Real Clear Politics averages for those polls, Democrats who voted against ObamaCare are now ahead in 10 of 15 races (leading by an average of 5.5 percentage points) while Democrats who voted for ObamaCare lead in just 9 of 33 races (losing by an average of 2.5 points).


If I may add to Anderson’s fine column, I think that voters realize that, if the administration’s health care reform is allowed to stand, America will be transformed forever-and not in a way that most of us want. The health care reform won’t do much to improve medicine, but it will change forever the way the nation works and the individual’s relationship with government. Speaking of relationships, Congress passed the bill knowing the majority of citizens didn’t want it, giving the distinct impression that members’ relationships with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi mattered more than their connection to us.