Obama Told Democrats ObamaCare Would Be Popular. Whoops.

The Wall Street Journal Texas Insider Report: WASHINTON D.C This years election is a referendum on an entitlement the public never wanted & continues to hate.  One of the major reasons that this year shifted from ordinary losses to potential catastrophe is ObamaCare.  Midterm elections amid a lousy economy are usually bad for the Presidents party but it looks as if a neutron bomb may detonate on Democrats in 2010.       Take almost any poll at random.

• Even this weeks New York Times-CBS poll has repeal leading among likely voters 47 to 43.
• The latest Pew-National Journal survey shows that a majority of likely voters51favors repeal including 53 of independents.
• The Real Clear Politics average of all polling shows support for the law at 40.9and opposition at 50.6.

The Kaiser Family Foundation whose outlier tracking poll has consistently shown the most ObamaCare support now reports that only 42 view the law favorably. Thats a seven-point drop since September and it happened to coincide with the start date for the patients bill of rights which Kaiser says is among the bills popular parts. Voters are learning that mandates like those that allow children to remain on their parents health insurance until age 26 tend to increase costs. There are many other such scales-from-the-eyes moments. The New England Journal of Medicine another outlet for ObamaCare partisans recently conceded in a perspective akin to an editorial that it seems clear that Americans today have very negative views about the general direction of the country in large part because of the health bill. Speaking of the shock of recognition theres the case of Earl Pomeroy. The 9-term North Dakota Democrat earned liberal plaudits for his numerous TV ads defending ObamaCare and his vote for it as well as blasting Republican Rick Berg for ostensibly putting big insurance first. Now Mr. Pomeroy has cut a closing-argument TV spot that begins

Im not Nancy Pelosi Im not Barack Obama.

(This may be the Democratic version of I am not a witch.) Mr. Pomeroy adds that I know Ive disappointed you with a vote here or there and while the ad doesnt mention health care symbolically hes given up defending it. Mr. Pomeroy was one of the few Democrats who bothered to run on health care at all. Another was Russ Feingold who made ObamaCare the centerpiece of his re-election campaign. Yet the Wisconsin Senator continues to trail Republican Ron Johnson a businessman and political novice who was motivated to enter the race because of the bill. In Washington Dino Rossi is neck-and-neck with Patty Murray and the final stretch of his campaign is almost exclusively about health care. Even voting against ObamaCare is no guarantee of safety for Democrats. The Cook Political Report notes that the 34 Democrats who bucked their party are all in lean Republican or toss up races. But the candidates who are doing best are those like Ohios Zack Space and Massachusettss Stephen Lynch who voted for ObamaCare last November and then flipped to vote against it this March. As for the eight Democrats who switched from nay to aye theyre getting hammered. Democrats may hold only one of these districts and its the Cleveland redoubt represented by Dennis Kucinich. Those soon to be collecting 99 weeks of jobless benefits include Betsy Markey (Colorado) and Suzanne Kosmas (Florida) both of whom have been left for dead by the national party plus John Boccieri (Ohio) and Allen Boyd (Florida). In the 92 most-competitive districts that matter for controlling the House a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll found that 55 of voters favor the candidate who wants to repeal ObamaCare. Only 42 will vote for candidates who want to keep the law. Opposition is most intense among crucial voting blocks like independents and seniors; those who called the law very bad outweighed the very goods by 24 to 34 points. All this is particularly striking given that the President Obama Bill Clinton and so many others assured the backbenchers that health care would be a political winner. Now even they have given up trying to spin that false promise blaming voter hostility on TV ads and er the insurance industry that the public supposedly despises. The reality is that voters who oppose ObamaCare are far more knowledgeable about the law and its consequences than most Congressmen who voted for it.   Republicans must do more to advance a reform alternative to ObamaCare but no one should mistake the implications of Tuesdays vote. Whatever the results the public is telling Congress to repeal and replace this bill before it does any more damage.