HECKUVA DAY FOR HECK
As news days go, today is about as good as you could hope if
you’re Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nevada).
Heck is facing what was supposed to be a heckuva a challenge
in November from one of the Democrats’ top draft picks for the 2014 election
cycle: Campaign trainer and political consultant Erin Bilbray-Kohn. But like the
San Diego Chargers after drafting Ryan
Leaf in 1998, the D’s are having serious buyer’s remorse.
So much hype; so little substance.
And here in the midst of the dog days of summer, official
Washington is finally catching on to what we here in Nevada have known for
several months; that the Bilbray-Kohn campaign isn’t a thoroughbred, it’s a
nag. From Stu Rothenberg’s blog in Roll
Call today…
Nevada’s 3rd District was supposed to host one of the most competitive House races in the country. But thus far, it hasn’t played out that way.Democrats were excited about their recruit, Democratic National Committeewoman Erin Bilbray, the daughter of former Democratic Rep. Jim Bilbray. Bilbray was on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s second wave of JumpStart candidates released last September and was endorsed by EMILY’s List nearly a year ago.But Bilbray has had trouble transitioning from campaign operative to candidate, according to multiple Democratic sources, and her campaign has not caught fire. Bilbray had just less than $500,000 in the bank on June 30, compared to Heck’s $1.5 million, and there is no indication that reinforcements are on the way for the challenger.Neither the DCCC nor the House Majority PAC, the go-to outside group on the Democratic side for House races, has reserved television time in the Las Vegas media market yet, which is an indication that some strategists aren’t convinced this is a good opportunity.We’re changing our Rothenberg Political Report/Roll Call rating of Nevada’s 3rd District from Leans Republican to Republican Favored amid growing doubts that this will be a top tier race in the fall.
Ah, what might have been.
In other news, Congressman Heck serves as a case study for
how to get a bill passed in gridlocked Washington, D.C. in today’s Las Vegas Sun…
“Remember that Schoolhouse Rock cartoon explaining how a bill becomes a law? It doesn’t always work that easily in 2014’s hyper-partisan, election-preoccupied Congress. Today, President Barack Obama is signing into law a bill modernizing the nation’s job training programs, one of the few pieces of legislation Congress actually passed this summer. A critical component of the bill can be traced back to Nevada’s Rep. Joe Heck, a Republican representing Henderson and Boulder City.”
You can read the full article by clicking
here
HOW SANDO-HUTCH BLEW IT ON OBAMACARE
During the GOP primary race for lieutenant governor this
year, state Sen. Mark Hutchison ran
on the fact that he handled the failed lawsuit to overturn ObamaCare for the
state of Nevada. Problem is, after
losing the case, Hutchison and Gov. Brian
Sandoval gave up. If it was a movie
it would have been titled, “How I Stopped
Fighting and Learned to Love ObamaCare.”
You see, what Sandoval did after getting elected in 2010 was
become the first and only Republican governor to quit fighting the feds and set
up his own ObamaCare exchange here in Nevada – a complete, total, unmitigated
disaster that has resulted in the recent axing of the exchange director and a
slew of lawsuits that are gonna cost taxpayers a bundle in the coming years.
For his part, Hutchison stopped fighting and instead voted
to implement ObamaCare here in Nevada three separate times as a wet-behind-the-ears
freshman state senator last year. He
then went on to run as lieutenant governor this year defending those votes and
Sandoval’s ObamaCare exchange clunker claiming it was better for Nevada to go
it alone than be included in the federal exchange.
And thanks to those misguided I’d-rather-quit-than-fight
decisions, Nevada is not one of 36 states that had a key part of ObamaCare’s
exchange program struck down by a court on Tuesday. From the Wall
Street Journal…
A federal appeals court struck down the subsidies available to some consumers who buy health coverage on insurance exchanges established by the federal government, in a substantial blow to the Obama administration's implementation of its health-care law.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, on a 2-1 vote, invalidated an IRS regulation that implemented a key piece of the Affordable Care Act. The regulation said subsidies were available to qualifying consumers whether they bought coverage on a state exchange or one run by the federal government. The ruling potentially could cripple the act by making subsidies unavailable in as many as 36 states where the federal government has run some or all of the insurance exchanges.The court sided with challengers who argued the health law allowed subsidies only for insurance purchases made through state exchanges.
If Sandoval and Hutchison had kept fighting ObamaCare
instead of quitting, Nevadans - like the citizens of 36 other states - might
have had a chance to shed themselves of this massive government take-over of
our health insurance industry. Instead,
we’re gonna continue to get screwed.
Ladies and gentlemen, your GOP ticket for governor/lieutenant
governor for 2014!
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“George Harrison's memorial tree was killed by
beetles.” - Ironic headline on Gawker.com
today
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