Watch the teabaggers freak out, as the GOP backs away from 'repeal'

[Enrique]

The threat to repeal is ridiculous. They can't do it, and they probably regret talking about it. But the teabagging fools believed it and now they expect it and they will see any moderation of the message as a betrayal. I mean, what about all the ridiculous hyperbole about how bad the bill is? How can they suddenly tolerate it now?

Mitt Romney, for example. He said he's going to work for repeal. How long is he going to keep that up? Seriously. They're going to keep asking him about it and the dems are going to keep pointing out how similar Obama care is to Romney's own plan he did in Massachusetts. The teabaggers never liked him anyway and aren't inclined to cut him any slack.

Anyway, the GOP will have to get off the ridiculous "repeal" road at some point. I would suggest they get brick-proof windows for their offices.

[bluestateguy]

1. They are already "walking it back"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/23/nrscs-cornyn-we-wont-call_n_510232.html

[Unvanguard]

3. They can't even try for a partial repeal, though. The reform works as a package.

And the Republicans have yet to come up with anything resembling a compelling alternative. Now that it's passed, "no" will just not do.

[Danger Mouse]

2. The GOP is totally screwed. They whipped their base into a frenzy...

with promises they can't possibly keep and empty rhetoric that is quickly being exposed for being, surprise!, empty rhetoric.

Only a few lone pubs, like Frum, realize how deeply troubled the party is right now.

[BurtWorm]

4. The time is ripe for a Nixon-like politician to play to the right wing while sounding reasonable to

the moderates. It's just like the 1960s in many ways. The right wing is all afroth and paranoid and ready to goosestep together, and the left, though nominally in power, is disorganized and at each other's throats. The president talks liberal and acts conservative. The center is more right than left. We're just missing the mass countercultural movement that shook up the American family.

In any case, just like his dad George Romney, Mitt Romney is not the one to scoop up the right and center. Just like his Dad, he's too slick, too slippery in his positions, and too not trusted by anyone. The teabaggies don't like him and the middle doesn't know him or care to know him.

[Still Sensible]

5. I don't think it will be so obvious, I expect

they'll try and walk a tightrope. They can't afford to distance themselves from the teabaggers in a public way because they need every knuckle dragger to donate money and show up at the polls. I suspect they will do nothing to rein them in (unless events force them to). I don't think you'll see a great deal of public support from mainstream GOP, they just won't dare call them out.

The media covers the teabaggers as if they are a bigger force and more legitimate than they are. When I was a kid we had the birchers and the survivalists and the klanners--who were all treated as the fringe groups they were... but thanks to the mass media and the internet the flat-earth-bigots-have-to-make-sure-people-different-from-us-don't-get-anything is still fringe, but a bigger group than they used to be. They get to meet up in chat rooms now and reinforce themselves. Not to mention recruit vulnerable potential knuckle draggers.

While I believe that the USSC--even the bunch we have now--would be very unlikely to overturn 200 years of the interpretation of the supremacy clause, you can bet they;ll go shopping for favorable conservative districts in which they could win the first round. Heck, it's a longshot, but if they can get it in the eight circuit they could win round two as well.

One difference, given that in a short time the insurance companies will (they should) embrace the current bill, the judicial efforts may not be s well financed. I refuse to believe that the income to the insurance companies from the addition of 30 million mostly healthy new premium payers doesn't outweigh the losses those companies fear from the limits removal and inability to deny coverage provisions.

Anyway, the moderate wing of the GOP that ruled the party until Reagan, would have publicly backed away from these clowns--as they did the birchers and their ilk in the 60s and 70s... But the current Repuke Party will walk the tightrope IMO.

Corrected spelling.