Democrats are feeling dispirited as they cast a wary eye toward 2014. Obamacare and the Obama economy are not popular among voters. So with Congress in their home districts during August recess, the president’s post-election campaign organization, OFA, also known as the replacement DNC, has launched “Action August” in hopes of coaxing Democrats into voicing support for the party’s unpopular policies.
They claim to be following the Tea Party model, as some have reported. But if that’s true, they’re ignoring the fact that the Tea Party reaction to Obamacare and the president’s threats for higher taxes in 2009 and 2010 was spontaneous and bottom-up. OFA’s “Action August” is top-down “Astroturfing.”
Americans aren’t going to come out in droves to support Obamacare. It’s not just Republicans who see Obamacare is making things worse. Independents do too—as do a growing number of Democrats.
Support for Obamacare among moderate and conservative Democrats has dropped to 46 percent, down 28 points since the law was enacted, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. A CBS poll in July found 54 percent of adults disapprove of Obamacare, and the number of Americans calling for a complete repeal of Obamacare has reached an all time high in the poll. Gallup finds that 43 percent of independents say Obamacare will make their families’ healthcare worse.
Union leaders, typically supportive of Democrat candidates, are also sounding the alarm. The Teamsters’ James Hoffa and others wrote to the administration saying that Obamacare will “destroy the very health and wellbeing of our members,” and “destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.”
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Democrats are desperate. Now that Obamacare isn’t just being argued in the abstract, it’s much harder to deny its flaws. That means they aren’t winning over the American public as they expected to.
Thus, OFA is trying to generate the false impression of support for Obamacare by holding rallies and events across the country. But if Obamacare were good policy, it would be good politics, too, and there would be no reason for OFA to do this.
So, how is OFA doing? A recent Obamacare rally put on by OFA Virginia says it all. As Politico reported, “Just one volunteer stayed to help work the phone bank for the health law.”
With OFA taking the lead in this effort, it’s just another reminder of the dysfunction in the Democrat Party power structure. President Obama’s election effort has left the DNC $18.3 million in debt, and even DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz appears to feel that the committee should be left for dead. Instead of spending her energy raising money for the indebted committee, she recently announced her plans to fundraise for her own leadership PAC. According to Politico, “she is planning to employ the nearly unrivaled Rolodex she’s built to turn it into political muscle in the Capitol — for herself.” Unsurprisingly, BuzzFeed reports that the White House is expressing “outrage.”
So it’s no wonder Democrats can’t even organize more than two people at a Virginia rally; they can’t seem to get themselves organized.
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