On “This Week” on Sunday, substitute host Jonathan Karl told Obama adviser David Plouffe that his “far more nuanced” truth might not beat the Republicans’ negative ads when it came to the new Congressional Budget Office report on Obamacare: “The ad saying 2 million fewer jobs is a lot easier than this far more nuanced argument about job lock.”
Plouffe tried the lame spin that the American people “don’t want another political fight about health care.” Has he seen a poll on approval for Obamacare? Then conservative pundit S.E. Cupp of TheBlaze really tore into Plouffe:
DAVID PLOUFFE: First of all, I highly doubt that the first week of November 2014, voters who are clearly undecided in a Senate or House race are going to be citing a CBO report. We blow these things up in Washington. I’d say this: you asked whether they [Republicans] want to keep the focus on Obamacare? They’re obsessed with it, and voters see through that. In 2012, health care hurt the Republicans. We had the advantage on this. So the Republican strategy seems to be ‘We think everything’s great. We’re going to play ‘four corners’ [a time-wasting strategy in basketball], we’re not going to do anything. Most Americans, and every swing voter, they do not want have another political fight about health care. They want it to be implemented and fixed. The politics is different –
KARL: S.E.’s shaking her head.
S.E. CUPP: The spin on this is incredible! And Congressman Cole is right, we have a lot to talk about on Obamacare. But on this particular issue, what has never been controversial in the past is that disincentivizing work is bad, economically and culturally and socially. Economists have made it their project for the past century to develop welfare programs that disincentivize work the least, because disincentivizing work has been a bad idea. Now for Democrats it’s suddenly ‘freedom.’ I think the American public sees through that. It’s a pretty transparent effort at spin control.
ABC political reporter Jeff Zeleny agreed, trying not to say you get a look of terror from vulnerable Democrats on the CBO report. “I went up to a few Democrats who were running, in trouble, Mary Landrieu (D-LA), possibly, Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) from New Hampshire. The look on their face when you ask them about the CBO report [terror!], is a look that just validates the fears out there.”
Karl did turn around on Plouffe and recount how he shamed Democrats for "bedwetting" about defeat in 2010 -- which turned out to be an awfully bad year. Karl somewhat embarrassed Plouffe by showing a graphic that displayed how poor President Obama's approval rating is in states with Senate races -- including 31 percent in Arkansas (Democrat Sen. Mark Pryor) and Alaska (Democrat Sen. Mark Begich):
