A wave of conservatives, Catholic leaders, even typically media-shy nuns is building to crash on President Obama’s insurance birth-control mandate, raising the likelihood that Obamacare will join the economy and jobs as the top issues in the 2012 election. On multiple fronts, foes of the president’s insurance birth control demand are organizing into cooperating groups, some to run ads against the president’s initiative and re-election campaign, and others to lobby Congress to block his new mandate. And 12 interest groups, including anti-abortion interests and doctors, on Monday filed a brief with the Supreme Court backing repeal of the president’s overall health reform program.
Some of the foes coming together to fight the president are big names in the conservative world. Brent Bozell, chairman of the Media Research Center and the anti-Obamacare group For America, has gathered 42 critics so far, including former Attorney General Edwin Meese, former Republican Party Chairman Ed Gillespie, and Tea Party founders Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin. The University of Notre Dame’s Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has another list of 100 opponents, including the president of Catholic University.
Then there are simple religious communities like those run by Catholic nuns uniting in prayer against the new policy. “The Sisters of Mary will offer up daily prayers with the intention that this unjust mandate be overturned, and we will do so until it is overturned,” said the Catholic community in Ann Arbor, Mich., in a letter provided to Washington Secrets.
While the president’s campaign team had hoped to focus on the slowly shrinking unemployment crisis and recovering economy in the re-election campaign, his flub in handling the birth control issue is fast pushing his controversial health reform up the ladder of issues voters are most concerned about. “This is changing the dynamics of the 2012 race from just being on the economy to his aggressive government agenda led by Obamacare,” said conservative strategist Greg Mueller.
McAuliffe angles for second gubernatorial try
Count former Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe in for the 2013 Democratic gubernatorial election in Virginia. What’s more, say allies, put him on top of the list.
A runner-up to Creigh Deeds in 2009, McAuliffe has been working the state to build support and is now stepping into General Assembly issues, including the new bid to require voter identification on Election Day. He’s leading a petition to stop what he dubs an “assault on voting rights,” part of a broader Democratic claim that requiring voter ID depresses the minority vote.
“Virginia Democrats have a nearly empty bench,” said the University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato. “McAuliffe is the only one out there who is aggressively seeking the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, though he hasn’t announced,” he added. But he notes others are rumored to join in, including Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Gerry Connolly.
Mainstream Media Scream: Economist hit on Santorum
Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media this week features Economist staffer Zanny Minton Beddoes on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” discussing GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum.
She said, “The fact that you say that you think he might win the nomination completely terrifies me. I mean, how many decades back, how many centuries back does he want to take us?”
Brent Baker, Media Research Center’s vice president of research, explains our pick this way: “Terrifying? The level of journalistic hostility to Santorum is terrifying to anyone who expects members of the press corps to be tolerant and accepting of diversity, the very values they condemn conservatives for supposedly not holding. But at least she’s opened a window into the wider journalistic mind-set about Santorum.” Rating: Three out of five screams.
Paul Bedard, The Examiner’s Washington Secrets columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears each weekday in the Politics section and on washingtonexaminer.com.
