Hugh Hewitt: Spotlight Obamacare's 20 Dems for 2010

Memo for Rep. Pete Sessions, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee:

Saturday night's 220-215 vote in favor of the government's takeover of American health care will be extraordinarily unpopular across the country.

Converting not just three but a dozen or more Democrats from the "yeas" to "nays" when the bill returns for a final votelater this year or early next will require sending an unmistakable message of certain defeat in 2010 to the bill's most vulnerable supporters, and the NRCC has the opportunity to do just that.

The NRCC should announce a special, segregated fund, and name as its targets the 20 Democrats of the 220 who are from the most competitive districts based on the 2008 election.

We have heard again and again of the scores of Democratic Congressmen who won in districts that John McCain carried in last year's presidential election. Now is the time to narrow that list down to the 20 who supported the massive cuts to Medicare, the enormous tax hikes, and the laundry list of other horrors in the Speaker Nancy Pelosi version of Obamacare.

Stapling Saturday's vote to these 20 congressmen will not only give them reason to reverse their positions next time, it will also give the country an opportunity to vote with their wallets. The NRCC's "reverse the vote" fund should make some iron-clad guarantees:

»  That all money raised for the special fund will be spent only in races against these 20 supporters of Obamacare;

»  That all the money raised will be divided equally among the GOP nominees in those 20 districts, and will be turned over to them to spend as they see fit the day after they secure the party nominations;

»  The NRCC will establish a Web site devoted to tracking the news and polling out of those 20 districts and will brand these 20 Democrats as the key and real sponsors of Obamacare -- the 20 Democrats who made it happen.

If Obamacare is to be stopped, it is necessary to make very specific Democrats own their votes. If this week these 20 Democrats see the top of the Obamacare-driven target list and the funds begin to roll in, they will have to rethink what they have done.

Appeal to voters for $1 a race (a $20 contribution), or $5 a race ($100), or $50 ($1,000) or $100 ($2,000)and watch the money roll in as anger with the vote translates into activism.

As it does, the 20 Democrats who embraced Obamacare will hear the proverbial political footsteps.So will every Democrat who voted no, and this group will grow in their resolve not to be wooed no matter what changes are made by the conference committee.

Your counterpart in the Senate, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee (NRSC), should be doing the same thing right now - running a special campaign to raise funds specifically for the eventual challengers of the three most vulnerable Democrats who vote for cloture so that the bill can be taken up -- a "Stop Cloture" fund.

I expect those will be Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., Sen. Michael Bennett, D-Colo., and Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., but we won't know until the first cloture vote, though the appeal for funding can begin immediately.

The key is to use fundraising to highlight a vote, and to use the vote to drive fundraising and organization.

Tens of thousands are sufficiently motivated to come to Washington, D.C., to demonstrate. Hundreds of thousands will vote with their wallets against those truly responsible for Obamacare in the House and the Senate if they can be assured that their money really will go to defeat the Democrats who should have known better -- who should have represented their districts and states, not the demands of the president, Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid.

If the NRCC and the NRSC start such targeted funds this week, they will be overwhelmed with response. If they don't, some other group ought to fill the void and run the same sort of campaign.

The grass roots are extraordinarily motivated and want only to be given a chance to be heard.Nothing makes as loud a noise on Capitol Hill as the rush of money to your opponents' coffers. It is time to turn up that volume on Obamacare.