Steve Lynch is a Democratic Rep. from Massachusetts who doesn’t hesitate to buck the party line from a centrist point of view, and to speak openly about problems in the party and with party positions.
Lynch ran for Senate to fill John Kerry’s seat, but lost in the primary to now-Senator Ed Markey.
Lynch recently was interviewed by The Boston Herald about upcoming Obamacare problems and how devastating they will be for Democrats. That runs contrary to cut current news cycle Democratic spin that (allegedly) meeting sign up goals means electoral problems related to Obamacare are over.
U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, the lone member of the Bay State delegation to vote against Obamacare four years ago, now predicts the law’s botched roll-out will not only cost Democrats valuable House seats but could even jeopardize their control of the Senate in this year’s hotly contested midterm elections.“We will lose seats in the House,” the plain-talking South Boston Democrat said in Boston Herald Radio’s studio yesterday, delivering a harsh diagnosis. “I am fairly certain of that based on the poll numbers that are coming out from the more experienced pollsters down there. And I think we may lose the Senate. I think that’s a possibility if things continue to go the way they have been … primarily because of health care.”Lynch cuttingly questioned whether many of his colleagues who echoed President Obama’s health care promises even “read through the bill really,” noting that many mechanisms created to fund the law still aren’t in effect.Among them, Lynch said, is a hefty tax on employers who offer so-called “Cadillac” plans that won’t come into play until 2018.“There’s all these taxes and fees that are the tough medicine, that up to now they haven’t implemented. I don’t know who’s going to do that,” Lynch said. “Maybe … they expect the next administration is going to put these penalties in place. I think that’s the time it’s going to hit the fan.”
Lynch’s assessment is consistent with Politico’s reporting about how the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is performing frantic triage, trying to figure out which Democratic incumbents can be saved, and which challenges to Republican incumbents are still vaible:
Operatives working with Democratic groups say they’ve been tasked with examining how much damage incumbents have incurred from a wave of attacks funded by Americans for Prosperity, a Koch brothers-funded outfit. They’ve been conducting polling much earlier in the election year than they initially anticipated…. The focus on protecting incumbents is fueling anxiety among Democratic challengers that they won’t receive campaign resources from the national party. It’s not uncommon for the DCCC, the party’s House political arm that assesses Democratic candidates on the strength of their fundraising performance and campaign organization, to weed out underdogs. But in interviews, some of the party’s campaign veterans said they felt the committee was being far more stringent than in past years. One candidate in a top-tier race, who requested anonymity to discuss internal conversations, said he’d been told by DCCC officials that they intended to devote resources to a sparse number of GOP-held seats and that he’d have to work to make the cut. “There’s just this knowledge that it’s a shrinking map,” said a campaign manager for another Democratic candidate running in one of the nation’s most closely watched House races. “If you’re not meeting [their] benchmarks, they’re saying you’re not going to be in their pool of candidates.”
Against this backdrop, Obama is spiking the football over sign-up numbers. And of course, frantically trying to delay harmful provisions until after the 2014 election.
The only one who actually seems to believe Obama’s spin is Obama. Other’s repeat it, but Obama’s one of the few remaining true believers in his own greatness.
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