Enter
they may have had. And prior
to the Florida result, the Democrats’ task in 2014 was already
essentially a daunting triage operation to minimize the coming
bloodletting as best they can.
The results suggest that there
will be no cakewalks, and that
Democrats will have to run some
very agile campaigns, spend
money intelligently, and minimize mistakes just to have a shot
at holding serve. (That DCCC
Chairman Steve Israel is encouraging Sink to try this again suggests that they are still in the
“denial” stage of grief.)
Of course, the sexier narrative to be spun from this special
election is whether or not it’s
an early sign of how Obamacare
will play in the midterms. I find
it hard to implicate Sink, who
never actually cast a vote for
Obamacare, for the law’s successes or failures. But that likely
won’t stop some from spinning
a Grand Narrative. Over at The
Plum Line, Greg Sargent predicts
that “the GOP victory will only
deepen Republican certainty that
their anti-Obamacare message is
a sure winner, meaning hundreds
and hundreds of millions of anti-Obamacare ads over the next
LOOKING FORWARD
IN ANGST
HUFFINGTON
03.16-23.14
eight months, with the escalation
to begin any day now.”
Probably! Of course, the truth
is that, had Sink prevailed, it’s
not as if it would have dented the
GOP’s fondness for using the Affordable Care Act as a midterm
election line of attack, either.
If it matters, Jolly himself is
of a different mind on the matter, telling Fox News, “This was
a local race. I know the national
Prior to the Florida
result, the Democrats’ task
in 2014 was already essentially
a daunting triage operation
to minimize the coming
bloodletting as best they can.”
pundits will draw from it what
they want, I think we saw some
message testing from the national parties, particularly by the
Democrats ... but this is about
more than Obamacare.” Frankly,
the fact that Jolly essentially
rejected the broad political narrative probably tells you much
more about why he succeeded in
the special election.
Meanwhile, Florida GOP consultant Rick Wilson urges some