Some Democrats hope to minimize the importance of Obamacare as a political issue by focusing on other topics in this November’s midterm elections. Some hope to win by promising to fix the flawed national health care plan they passed in 2010. And others hope to turn the issue on Republicans by appealing to voters who have been helped by the law.

The problem is, none of that will work. The importance of Obamacare as an issue in November 2014 cannot be controlled by either political party. It will be determined by just one thing, and that is the performance of Obamacare as a law in the months preceding the election.