Huffington Magazine Issue 78 | Page 10

Enter CCORDING TO Politico, strange things are afoot in the world of Obamacare and the media, as the White House makes its case for the law: A President Barack Obama has bungled HealthCare.gov so badly that he’s told senior aides to not even try to win positive coverage from the national press. Instead, they’re going local. In the past month, Obama and his Cabinet have hit nine of the top 10 cities with the highest concentration of the uninsured, while senior administration officials have held almost daily reporter conference calls in nearly a dozen states to challenge Republican governors who refuse to expand Medicaid. OH NOES, what’s going on here? Obama is bypassing the national press and instead targeting the local media? Surely, that’s bizarre, right? Well, actually, it’s not really a new thing to see the Obama White House take its message to the hinterlands. During the 2012 campaign, talking to the local me- LOOKING FORWARD IN ANGST HUFFINGTON 12.08.13 dia (which we’re using here as a catch-all term for