Are Republican election predictions honest or flights of fancy?

Many Conservatives and Republicans, the two are far from being the same thing, have taken the option that the Supreme Court upholding Obama Care will sway the elections on all levels in their direction. This optimism reaches far beyond simply the Presidential election down through all levels even likely to the election for School Boards, City and County elections, and even Dog Catcher (Animal Control Department Head); with a strong emphasis on enlarging their majority in the House of Representatives and likely surpassing the important sixty seats in the Senate. This has some going so far as to work-up a list of objectives which can be realized once the Republican Party holds a similar lock on the Congress and the White House just as President Obama possessed during the first two years in office. But, are these optimistic Conservatives and Republicans counting their chickens before they hatch or grounded in solid, factual reality?

This wave of optimism is easily explained as a psychological defense mechanism being used to ameliorate the recent Supreme Court ruling affirming Obama Care as perfectly legal under the taxing powers found within the Constitution. Most Conservatives and Republicans were fully expecting at a minimum the personal mandate clauses in the legislation to be knocked down and with the finding of total Constitutional legality they received a serious shock to their systems. From this they derived one saving grace from the rubble of their position which was utterly destroyed, and that was that with the upholding of Obama Care as their cudgel they would be able to club any Democrat mercilessly in the elections this November.

There are a few holes in this theory of which the largest is the fact that a fair number of Democrats, feeling the political winds in their districts, will be campaigning to similarly promise to repeal Obama Care. Where this does not completely deprive those opposing the Democrats who voted for Obama Care, it will lessen the effect of this argument. Of course, with most of the Democrats having voted in favor of Obama Care, these incumbents may be facing a real challenge in swing districts and possibly in formerly safe Democrat strongholds. But such a challenge will be useless against new Democrats running against incumbent Republicans as these Democrat candidates never voted for Obama Care and can campaign against it just as stridently as any Republican. The one fortunate fact for Republicans is that none of them had supported Obama Care and thus it will not be an albatross they must wear around their necks like almost all of the Democrats.

But there are even deeper problems with this line of reasoning that the Obama Care verdict by the Supreme Court will be the golden ticket they can ride to power by Republicans and Conservatives alike. One such problem is that there are a good number of people who still support Obama Care. Though they may be a minority in the population as a whole, they are definitely not the minority in every district and then there are some where Obama Care is nowhere near their most important issue. When you add that the election is still four months away, there will be a good number who will not have held tightly to their immediate reaction against this ruling.

Then, on top of all these reasons that Obama Care may have a diminished effect on the elections is the possibility that much of the instruments of Obama Care rolled out before the election will solely be the more favorable items while the negative parts will remain dormant until after the election is over. It has been registered by polling that some of the activated rules from Obama Care already being applied have been received favorably. Two examples are the rule that preexisting conditions may not be used to deny coverage and that children under certain circumstances will be allowed to remain covered under their parents’ insurance. The gamesmanship over Obama Care and its initial acceptance by the voters is far from over.

The final card that will be played is the favorable coverage much of the mainstream press will give to any part of Obama Care that is activated going into the elections. The mainstream press will also stress how President Obama simply utilized Romney Care which was put in place when Mitt Romney was Governor of Massachusetts thus presenting Obama and Romney as on the same side when it comes to government provided health insurance. The press will also stress that Obama Care is not really government health care but rather a guarantor of health insurance to the thirty-million Americans who otherwise lack health insurance. The “compassionate” aspects of Obama Care are very likely to be grist for many editorials in the final weeks leading up to the elections.

The final problem which may prevent the inevitability of the Conservative or Republican victory come November is that there are numerous Republican incumbents who are perceived as weak when it comes to their voting records. Many of such Republicans have been labeled RINO’s and as such will not receive as much of the conservative vote as they may have in the past. In some cases the Conservative sector has decided that it is just as dangerous or even more dangerous to have a RINO Republican who will often vote with the Democrats as it would be to simply have a Democrat.

They figure that by allowing a Democrat to win this election, they can then place a true Conservative Republican on the ballot next election and have a true Conservative in office. Some find such a sacrifice to be acceptable and will no longer hold their noses and pull the lever simply to elect any Republican over the Democrat. This has been made evident in another wrinkle we have begun to witness more often this election cycle, the placing of a new face replacing incumbent Republicans in the primary elections. Where Orrin Hatch may have survived his challenge in Utah, just look over to Tulsa, Oklahoma, one of the most Conservative states, where a relative unknown candidate, Jim Bridenstine, defeated five-term incumbent John Sullivan in the primary to be the Republican Candidate for the US House of Representatives. Such supposed upsets have become more common if not the rule on the Republican side of election primaries.

This has shocked many of the old guard in the Republican Party. No longer are the electorate simply going to rubber stamp the pick of the so-called Party Bosses. I also suspect that this phenomenon will begin to strike down incumbents in the Democrat ranks as the people begin to realize that the Party they have remained loyal to for decades has not remained loyal to their beliefs and has been misrepresenting themselves for many long years now. That is the one change that we can all be happy about and joyously celebrate that the people have reached the end of their rope and will no longer accept the half-truths and outright lies fed them by the politicians and the media.

This may well become the greatest gift of the modern, everybody is plugged in, electronic world which is just now beginning to take over and make the new rules for the society. This metamorphosis holds great promise if only we choose to seek out information until we have the truth and then act upon those truths. We no longer need depend on anyone other than ourselves and should the next generation of voters take it upon themselves to serve truth, the Constitution and uphold the Republic saving it from sliding into a popularist Democracy, then the United States has a bright future. If instead they continue as so many in the past to settle for glitter, flash and sparkle and remain satisfied with scraps doled out by the political leadership, then the United States has a crippled future and will soon lose its luster and follow every previous Democracy into the ashbin of history. The choice is coming faster than many realize so the time for hope is shorter than many think. Be forewarned.