-By Warner Todd Huston
Every week we are seeing another Democrat deciding not to run for re-election or one that is switching parties to the GOP all due to the wild, left-wing overreach indulged in by the Obama Administration and its cohorts in Congress. Connecticut’s Senator Chris Dodd is only the latest heavy hitter Democrat that is looking for an “exit strategy,” if you will. And with all these pols looking to jump ship, the infamous 60th vote on healthcare, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, suddenly finds that bringing healthcare to a vote so soon was a bit of a mistake!
On Wednesday, Nelson, a master of the understatement, told the Fremont Tribune, “I think it was a mistake to take health care on as opposed to continuing to spend the time on the economy.”
Right after that statement, Nelson pronounced the maiden voyage of the SS Titanic “a bit of a flub,” said that Amelia Earhart made a “miscalculation” in her flight plan, and decided that founding the city of Pompeii at the foot of a volcano was probably “misguided.” But he still thought that his 60th vote for Obamacare was a good one.
So much for his judgment!
All snark aside, it isn’t surprising that Nelson has all of a sudden decided that bringing Obamacare to the floor of the Senate so early in Obama’s presidency was a mistake because he is getting pounded for it in his approval polls over his obviously mistaken vote.
Nelson’s approval ratings have taken a well deserved dive since he cast his infamous 60th vote last year. Even before his vote in favor of Obamacare polls stated that 61% said they’d be less likely to vote for Nelson if he cast a “yes” vote. And since his “yes” vote in favor of Obamacare, his poll numbers took such a beating that he felt he had to take to the airwaves to defend himself.
Worse, the “Cornhusker kickback” that Nelson obtained as a bribe for his vote might even give ammunition to foes of Obamacare to defeat the whole thing in court should the country be unfortunate enough to have Obamacare clear its final hurdles and become law. Naturally, Nelson is trying to misdirect everyone’s attention from the kickback saying that focus on his political bribe taking is somehow a “sideshow.”
Whatever the case, it is clear that Senator Ben Nelson never had so much exercise in his life until he started his backpeddling over his 60th “yes” vote in December. We may yet see Nelson join the retiring Democrat Party in 2010.
(Cross posted at RedCounty.com.)
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com.
He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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