CONGRESSMAN BOB GIBBS WORRIES ABOUT 30 MILLION WHO WILL REMAIN "UNCOVERED" BY HEALTH CARE AFTER "OBAMA CARE IS FULLY IMPLEMENTED IN 2016?

On January 19, 2011, Republican congressman Bob Gibbs voted for the very first time against "Obamacare" (officially named the Affordable Care Act).

The vote came fresh off the heels of his having defeated Democratic incumbent congressman Zack Space in the 18th District (before the 2010 generated redistricting).

Like Republican Jim Renacci in the "old" 16th District did to Democratic incumbent John Boccieri (voted "no" on November 7, 2009, but "yes" on March 21, 2010), he hammered away at the-then Congressman Space vote "yes" on Obamacare in the 2009 session of the 111th Congress before polling "no" on March 21, 2010 as the 2010 election neared.

It was rather silly of Space to vote "no" in 2010 after having voted "yes" in 2009.  After the 2009 vote, the die was cast and the turnabout in March of 2010 was not going to erase his original support of the measure for campaign purposes.

Voters were smart enough to figure out that he was really for Obamacare as evidenced by the 2009 vote and figured he could confuse, fool them by flip-flopping in 2010.

And, of course, Gibbs exploited Space's political opportunism big-time.

While all the politicking was going on leading up to the 2010 election, slightly more than half of all Americans disfavored Obamacare.

With redistricting in 2011 taking place, Gibbs became the congressman for most of Stark County in the guise of the 7th congressional district.

Now that the act has begun to be implemented, it is not clear what the political ramifications are to be in terms of supporting or not supporting the law now that a U.S. Supreme Court ruling has made it "the law of the land."

Republicans are now beginning to show signs of waffling a bit.

The SCPR believes that the 37 GOP sponsored/led votes were designed to put Democrats on the spot with their "yes" for Obamacare votes in order to make political hay at election time.

While the SCPR has not examined each and every vote that Gibbs has cast on the 37 tries, given his latest histrionics on voting "no" on the 37th vote; it is axiomatic to believe he must have voted "no" on each of the ad nauseam votes.

Witness Gibbs "tweet" on his latest vote:

If #ObamaCare is fully implemented, 30 million people will still be without health insurance. j.mp/106Jv35 #TrainWreck
— Rep. Bob Gibbs (@RepBobGibbs) May 17, 2013

The laughable and disingenuous thing about the "tweet" is that the clear implication that he cares about the 30 million or so Americans who will remain without health care at the end of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

For the only way for him to be convincing in a purported desire to cover every single American is for him to come out for a Single Payer System.  Who believes that a Republican would ever, ever support Canadian, European style government provided health care?

So while he is trying to make it appear that he has a big heart, the political truth of the matter is that he is gaming the health care issue for continued political advantage and is seeking to continue to bash Democrats for the Party's embrace of keeping Obamacare pretty much intact.

His "repeal and replace" stance with the implication that the "replace" includes finding a way to cover the remaining 30 million or so uncovered Americans.

But Stark Countians should not believe the implication of his words.

Democrats for their part think the tide may be turning on the part of the electorate in favor of Obamacare and that the 37 "no" GOP engineered congressional votes may in time turn out to be a political albatross around Republican candidates.

With John Boccieri having removed himself from the mix of possible candidates to take on Gibbs, the lot could once again fall to Joyce Healy-Abrams who Gibbs handily defeated in November, 2012.

Whichever Democrat is the Gibbs opposition in 2014, it will be interesting to see how the campaign evolves around the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) issue.

How will each candidate approach getting the full healthcare coverage of each and every American going forward beyond 2016 which is the year of maximum implementation of Obamacare?

Right now, it appears that Gibbs is merely engaging political rhetoric and posturing.

In the 2014 campaign, he will have to provide a real program for achieving full coverage, will he not?

If not, he risks coming across of not only "not having a big heart" and more like being "heartless."

Are the Democrats correct?

Could the lack of full coverage of health for all Americans become a campaign wedge issue that will make the 37 Republican engendered congressional "no" votes a political liability rather than a political plus?

IT APPEARS THAT HEALY-ABRAMS WILL COME UP JUST A TAD SHORT IN 7TH CONGRESSIONAL SEAT RACE

It has been pretty amazing that Joyce Healy-Abrams has been able to put the political heat on incumbent Republican Congressman Bob Gibbs (now of the 18th but running for a seat in the newly configured 7th as a consequence of the constitutionally mandated decennial redistricting).

Ohio lost population in the 2010 census and as a result lost two congressional seats.  It could be that the loss and having to run in a reconfigured district could cost Gibbs his seat but the SCPR does not look for such to actually happen.

How so?

While Healy-Abrams came out of gate stronger than one would expect being the political novice she is (running about even in a generic poll done early on), she has not been able to move up on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's (DCCC) list of preferred candidates.

In April she moved onto the DCCC list:

 

The "Emerging List" is defined by the DCCC as being those: 

candidates and districts that are making themselves competitive by running smart campaigns which are becoming increasingly competitive.

While being on the emerging list is an accomplishment, the list she must make if she is to have a good chance of winning is what is known as the "Red to Blue List."

The "Red to Blue List" consists of the:

top Democratic campaigns across the country, and offers them financial, communications, grassroots, and strategic support. The program will introduce Democratic supporters to new, competitive candidates in order to help expand their base leading up to Election Day.

Right now that list includes 53 congressional districts across the country.  For Ohio, only Charlie Wilson (elected in the Obama/Democratic banner year of 2008).  However, he lost in the Republican tide of 2010 and is now seemingly poised to reclaim the seat in this - a more balanced - election year.

As the SCPR sees this race is that the main reason Healy-Abrams is in play is that Gibbs allowed his old district (the 18th) to be decimatedly morphed into the 7th which only includes about a third of 18th.

To The Report both Gibbs and Healy-Abrams are bland candidates in and of themselves and do very little to generate excitement among the voters.  Yours truly is told that upwards of 50% of the 7th District voters know practically nothing about either candidates.

That being the case does not bode very well for Healy-Abrams as far as the SCPR is concerned.  When the 7th was put together, the gerrymanders calculated the political party bias of each and every district and the Republican map makers ensured that the 7th would lean Republican.

This means that absent extraordinary circumstances a Republican is going to win the 7th.

From what the SCPR sees of Healy-Abrams, there is nothing special about her or her campaign effort.

Had former 16th District Congressman John Boccieri entered the race, the SCPR believes that he does have enough of a flair about him to be on the DCCC "Red to Blue List" and therefore in a position to take the 7th for Democrats.

Republicans obviously were determined to make it difficult for Boccieri to make the run.  In redistricting they placed his home in Alliance into fellow Democrat Tim Ryan's 13th congressional district.

While Boccieri could legally have run for the 7th even living out of the district, such a fact would have been a distraction from the real issues of the campaign.  Of course, he could have moved like he did (from New Middetown [Mahoning County]) to Alliance) when he ran against Kirk Schuring in 2008.  However, he appears to be a solid family man who would not put his family (which includes a number of small children) through another such disruption in their lives.

So the 7th congressional district race is what it is and two pretty vapid candidates are in "a limp to the end."

Gibbs is so non-descript that it would not be a shock if Healy-Abrams were to win.

If she does, it will be a sign that Democrats are doing exceptionally well across the county. 

However, political pundits across the country are not expecting a Democratic groundswell, unlike in the 2010 races where some did insofar as Republican prospects were concerned.  Some predicted thewholesale change that resulted in the Republicans taking over the United States House of Representatives.  In 2012, most are predicting single-digit Democratic gains.

So the most that probably can be said about the prospect of a Healy-Abrams win in November is:

"Close, but no cigar!"