Strikedown The Mandate, Re-elect Obama

I'm hearing a lot of pundits who think that Obama has much to fear from the Supreme Court's health care decision.  These folks say that if the law is upheld,  the right will be motivated to beat him.  And if the law is struck down, Obama will look bad because his signature initiative will have been demolished.  I have a different view.

As a supporter of the law, I hope that the Supreme Court doesn't do anything foolish.  But if the law is struck down, I think that will provide a substantial lift to the President.  Why?  It will strip the GOP of an important issue for the base.  We can see from the way that GOP candidates are talking in the primaries that they believe Republican voters care a lot about repealing the health care law.  It's hard to know how much attacks on Obamacare work to corral independents.  But a decision striking down the law is sure to suck some of the urgency out of the GOP base.   Some abortion rights supporters have been remarkably sanguine about showing up to vote against pro-life candidates simply because they perceive that the issue is being handled outside of the political process.  Elections don't matter.  Opponents of the health care law could easily go through a similar conversion.

At the same time, if the law is struck down, Democrats may be able to campaign around judicial appointments in a way we haven't seen in recent history.  Court followers know that the Rehnquist and Roberts courts have been very comfortable striking down statutes adopted by political majorities.  Yet Republicans continue to have some success portraying the Court as activist in support of liberal positions.  Few cases in memory have presented such a powerful opportunity to reverse the tide of public opinion on this very issue and,  replace the old sticky narrative with a new story about an activist conservative Court.   If this case has half the organizing power of Roe v. Wade, Republicans would be advised to fear any decision that strikes down the mandate. 

Comments

[JJ]

It would be bad for all the people without health insurance if the law is struck down. The right is fired up by this because they do not have much else on which to get their base fired up. They can talk about the deficit, or the economy, but they do not really have any solutions which match the problems -- sure the deficit is high, so let's cut taxes some more to solve it.

If it is not health care, it would be some other minor issue. The right will always have hours and hours of talk radio to fill and a base which is easily provoked. Who would have thought birth control would still be debated in 2012? Health care is a big battle which was already won by the political process and we should not hope that the judicial process will negate what is both the right thing to do and the will of the people through their elected representatives.

[Norman Williams]

I agree that there is typically an asymmetry in political responses to judicial decisions -- the losers get angry and mobilize; the winners happily disperse -- but I disagree that asymmetry favors Democrats here. Invalidating the mandate while leaving the expansion of Medicaid in place complicates matters -- which I think the likely result -- would not immediately harm many people. The poor would still get coverage or subsidies. Agreed, the system would ultimately collapse as premiums in the private market spiral out of control, but that prospect would be years in the future, long after the 2012 election.