Beutler compares Obamacare to abortion:
An astute friend remarked to me on Tuesday that the GOP’s position on Obamacare is coming to resemble its position on abortion in one key way: loudly, consistently, uniformly opposed, but ultimately not really driven to eliminate it. The backlash they’d face would be brutal, but they might stand to gain by fighting it on the margins and keeping the issue alive.
The comparison holds at a state level too. The most effective Obamacare saboteurs have been GOP governors and legislatures who resisted the opportunity to create their own exchanges and have refused to expand Medicaid with federal dollars, as the law allows.
More generally, conservatives are wielding Obamacare the way they wielded culture war issues in the 1990s. The particulars are enormously different, but the political objectives are similar: pick an issue that both unites conservative voters and appeals to the discontent of moderates and use it first and foremost to fracture the Democratic coalition.
I don’t think they’re going to fracture the Democratic coalition. But I can imagine the issue remaining an effective mobilizing tool for an otherwise agenda-less party through the end of Obama’s presidency.
The Dish 