Cox Becomes Third Health Care Plaintiff To Lose Gubernatorial Bid

[ProSense]

Cox Becomes Third Health Care Plaintiff To Lose Gubernatorial Bid

Less than 10 minutes after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, 13 conservative attorneys general filed a lawsuit to overturn the new legislation. In addition, multiple Republican governors bypassed their Democratic state attorneys general in order to join the suit.

At the time they filed the lawsuit, five of the plaintiffs were running for governor of their state. All five cited their lawsuit against health care reform as a central selling point in their campaigns. In South Carolina, Attorney General Henry McMaster (R) touted in multiple ads how “when President Obama and the Washington radicals pushed their unconstitutional takeover of health care, I pushed back.” Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox sounded the same tune, declaring in a commercial that he “led the fight against Obamacare.”

Last night, Cox became the third of these five Republicans to lose in his state’s gubernatorial primary. With a fourth is on track to lose later this month, only Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett, who faced nominal opposition, will have successfully won his primary after suing health care reform. The others have found that their frivolous lawsuits won them little favor among Republican primary voters:

- On August 3, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox lost his bid for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, finishing a distant third place.

- On June 8, South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster tanked in his gubernatorial bid and came in third with just 17 percent of the vote.

- Also on June 8, Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons, who went so far as to usurp the state attorney general and enlist an all-volunteer cadre of lawyers in order to sue the federal government, was swamped in his re-election bid, garnering just 27 percent.

- Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, who was so eager to be the first attorney general to sue the federal government over health care that he filed suit seven minutes after the bill was signed into law, finds himself wallowing in the polls and faces an uphill battle in Florida’s August 24 primary.

Though many conservatives believe that opposing health care reform is a political winner, primary election results continue to tell a different story.

[Tempest]

1. It's the same with the anti-incumbency & tea bagger movements

In June and July primaries only one incumbent lost their race.

And the tea bagger movement has been a loser for months now.

[zipplewrath]

3. Yup

The baggers/birthers/birchers are struggling to show much success except in the smallest of primaries against other non-incumbents. They took credit for Scott Brown but by all indications the more likely cause was local politics.

[Tempest]

9. Coakley ran the worst campaign in recent history

Brown won by default. I'll put money down he'll lose in the next election.

[zipplewrath]

2. Lagging indicator

Nice story, and I suppose the larger sentiment is true. But I strongly suspect, and I happen to know in the case of McCollum, that these guys weren't all that popular to begin with. To some extent these stunts were "hail mary's" on their part. It's not that the issue was an "election killer" it's that it wasn't enough of an issue to improve an already bad candidate. If there is something encouraging, it is that it wasn't enough of an issue WITH REPUBLICAN PRIMARY VOTERS. The reform package wasn't as nearly unpopular with many folks, even the GOP as the baggers/birthers/birchers would want you to believe. Probably also more evidence that Scott Brown was less about HCR and more about local politics.

[Lasher]

4. I guess they shouldn't have gone shopping for an activist judge.

After all the GOP rhetoric about what a bad thing that is to do.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

5. And this is in the Republican Primaries

Where the Nutcase-to-Normal Voter ratio is markedly higher. These people would have been buried in a general election.

[4_TN_TITANS]

6. Keep in mind Tennessee's tea-bagger Lt. Gov.

He's in 3rd place right now in the Repub primary.

[Perky]

7. Bark bigger than bite?

pparently taking the Gov't to court over HCR is not much of a political winner. I don't dispute that the anger on the right is not authentic, But I think it may well not translate to the ballot box very well. Part of that is due to the limits of Grassroots organizing and the dysfunction at the top of the Tea Part Movement, but it is also due to the loud barking being far more ferocious than the bite the can be delivered

[JNelson6563]

8. We MI Dems are pointing & laughing at Cox today

Singing "Nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey...GOOOODBYYYYYEE!!!"

Asshole.

Julie

[golfguru]

10. Is the winner of GOP primary for or against Obamacare?