Republican Chances in November and Repealing Obamacare

I am a little nervous that Obama will be a two-term President as follows. The Republicans have a serious chance of winning control of the Senate and the House. This will give Obama a useful foil as well as force him to move to the center. By so doing, he may secure his re-election against what looks like a weak Republican field, at this point. Dick Morris made an interesting point today on Bill O'Reilly's show. Even though many Democrat Senators are leading in the polls, they are consistently polling under 50%. This usually bodes ill for the incumbent, because under such circumstances, the voters tend to break for the opposition. Dick Morris puts it like this, the voters already know the incumbent, so its something like a marriage. If you ask a married person if they will still be married in a year, and they are undecided, you have to think the marriage is in trouble. Some Democrats leading in the polls now, but who are under 50% and their RCP averages:

CA 44.8% Boxer
NV 47.3% Reid
WI 45.3% Feingold
WA 47.8% Murray
CO 46.0% Bennett

If you believe that these incumbents will lose and given that Ohio and Florida are trending Republican, with only leaves Illinois as a true toss up, among RCP's "toss up" races, this ends with Republicans with 51 or 52 senators. Not inevitable, maybe not likely, but we should be thinking about what to do.

Under these conditions, the Republicans will lack the votes to force an outright repeal of Obamacare. Both Senate filibuster and Obama veto guarantees that. But significant undermining of its worst aspects could set the stage for full repeal later. Grace-Marie Turner at the WSJ offers some options in Putting the Brakes on Obamacare.

• Dismantle it. To focus committee action and floor votes, Republicans can look for provisions in the law that Democrats are on record as opposing.

• Disapprove regulations. The Congressional Review Act of 1996 (CRA) gives Congress the authority to overturn regulations issued by federal agencies. . .

• Direct oversight and investigation. Other aspects of ObamaCare are ripe for public hearings. For example, rules dictating how much insurance companies must spend on direct medical benefits are already hugely controversial. . .

The real wallop of ObamaCare will come in 2014, when most of the spending begins and businesses and individuals are hit with intrusive and expensive mandates. The main job of Republicans, should they capture Congress, will be to slow down implementation of the law and explain to the American people the damage it will do.

I have some other ideas as well.

De-fund the vast number of committees and bureaucracy needed to implement the bill. Don't fund the IRS to monitor for compliance. Hold oversight hearings to demand that Holder defend the mandate under the commerce clause rather than under the taxing power to shine a spotlight on Obama's perfidy in this area.

I welcome more ideas from readers in the comments