Yesterday the message from the Republican Party was that regardless of the Supreme Court’s surprise healthcare ruling, the GOP would not stop working to repeal and replace Obamacare.
By today GOP groups had expanded their plan of action to include reminding voters that President Obama and the Obama administration had repeatedly tried to claim Obamacare was not a tax, even though, as the Supreme Court ruled, it is in fact a tax.
The Supreme Court ruling makes Obamacare one of the most massive tax increases in modern U.S. history, Republicans say.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) was one of the first organizations to pounce on Obama’s deceptive rhetoric, releasing a web ad called “Just Another Broken Promise” holding the President’s Obama feet to the fire on claims he would not raise taxes.
“In 2008, Candidate Obama promised middle class American families that they wouldn’t see their taxes go up under his administration, yet his signature legislation did just that,” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement.
Conservative grassroots organization Americans for Prosperity (AFP) announced in a private call with bloggers and activists Friday that it had made a 9 million cable ad buy across 12 battleground states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The ad, called “Not a Tax Increase?” reminds voters that President Obama “promised us his healthcare law is ‘absolutely not a tax increase.’
“Now we know that’s not true,” the ad accuses. “Shouldn’t Obama’s priorities have been creating jobs and ending reckless spending?”
AFP President Tim Phillips said the organization would also launch a widescale social media effort to promote the ads message and hold grassroots rallies across the country beginning with several rallies this weekend in Virginia, where AFP is headquartered.
“We’re not going to let the debate to move on to other issues as much as the President would like that,” Phillips said.
Other conservatives and Republicans took to twitter to begin pushing back immediately on liberals’ self-declared healthcare victory using the hashtags #Obamatax, #IwantRepeal and #Obamacareinthreewords in addition to already popular hashtags #hcr, #SCOTUS and #Obamacare, to try to shape public opinion on the ruling.
With Congress out of session now in honor of the Fourth of July, conservatives may seem to go quiet on the Obamacare front for the next week and a half. But expect conservatives to come back in mid-July reinvigorated by the Supreme Court decision and more powerful than ever. If Obama’s presidential campaign thought it was in trouble before, it should truly be afraid now.
