Bold Colors, not Pastel Paul's Pale Imitation: AmeriCare, Not CommieCare

"Americans are hungry to feel once again a sense of mission and greatness. I don 't know about you, but I am impatient with those Republicans who after the last election rushed into print saying, "We must broaden the base of our party" -- when what they meant was to fuzz up and blur even more the differences between ourselves and our opponents. It was a feeling that there was not a sufficient difference now between the parties that kept a majority of the voters away from the polls. When have we ever advocated a closed-door policy? Who has ever been barred from participating? Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?"--Ronald Reagan, "Let Them Go Their Way", 2nd Annual CPAC Convention, March 1, 1975

Newt gets it right:

1. It took 8 months to pass Reagan's Tax Cuts and Obamacare . This 3-week artificial deadline was unrealistic. This isn't over.
2. Take the argument to the Country, not the City and certainly not to the Cloakroom. A bill at 17% approval is doomed.
3. Have a bold, clear bill. This was a timid insider head-fake bill that, for example, only defunds Planned Parenthood for a year. People respond to clear, principled leadership, not to wimpy, least common denominator-maneuvering.
4. No more phony CBO numbers. No more absurd Senate rules. No more "Trust us 'til Wednesday for a cheeseburger today."

Some Republicans are also hiding behind the 60-vote filibuster rule, which should be abolished.

If 60% support is the Senate's sacred, untouchable Magic Number, then let's require senators to be elected themselves with a 60% vote.

Ace of Spades: "The Republicans actually want the Democrats to keep the filibuster, because they actually don't want a conservative court. Or to have the power to enact any of their legislative measures that they claim they want to enact, but in fact do not want to enact. They like pretending they want conservative reforms, while loving the fact that the Democrats can block those reforms.
Then they get to have their cake and eat it too -- they perpetually run on issues they don't want a resolution on, while being able to explain away their failure by saying "Because Democrats" or "Because Political Reality."".......

The whole purpose of Obamacare was to crash the system and institute full CommieCare.

And only freedom can stop it.

Neo-Civil War UPDATE:  Col. Schlichter goes Full-Appomattox Courthouse on Pvt. Ryan:

"Ulysses S. Grant also knew something about pummeling the stubborn Democrats of #TheResistance into submission, although his Democrats used iron chains instead of welfare and lies to keep their serfs in bondage. Grant wasn’t a big, flamboyant martial artist like George Patton – he didn’t make giant, bold strokes across the canvas of the battlefield. Grant was about brute force, not finesse. He found his Democrat enemy, fixed him in position, and beat on him until the Democrat couldn’t take it anymore and handed over his saber. That’s the right strategy for facing this intractable foe – luckily, the Democrats of today are merely a bunch of talky, whiny wusses, not the hardcore and courageous infantry and cavalry G-Dawg (and my ancestors) were called upon to regulate. ...

We know the strategy – grind out win after win, big and small, over time until the liberals are broken. It’s the tactics that Ryan has botched; he’s shown no aptitude for the basic blocking and tackling of legislating and consistently falls back on the errors of the past. Here’s how healthcare should have gone. Paully, starting the morning of November 9th, you should have orchestrated an inclusive effort to create a bill based on a consensus that incorporated every stakeholder with the ability to icepick it (the transition team, the Freedom Caucus, the squishes, the think tanks, and most vitally, the Senate). Once you had something everyone agreed on – and 216 sure votes in the House and 51 in the Senate – you all appear with the Prez in front of the cameras to announce it before you actually put out the document, thereby cementing in the narrative about why the people should dig it before the haters can hate it into little pieces. Then you pass it and win.

But what did we get? A tactical clusterflunk. Seven years in and Ryan wasn’t ready. He putzed around with no sense of urgency until there was a sense of urgency. Who was expecting this dog’s breakfast to drop when it did? And it just dropped on us out of the blue – one day, suddenly, there’s this whole plan out there. Surprise! I listened to Hugh Hewitt the morning after it was released; he was stunned that he couldn’t get any of the Republican House leadership [sic] on his show to talk to his conservative audience about the biggest piece of legislation in Trump’s first term.

Paully, you gave the enemy precious hours to set the narrative, and the bill never recovered. How stupid can you be to have no full court press plan to sell it, to manage the message, even though my corgi-retriever could have foreseen the media’s narrative was going to be that this was the moral equivalent of the Rwandan genocide - only without all the love?

Three phases? You didn’t have the credibility for one phase and you were babbling about three. Any idiot could have seen that Phase III (“The Democrats Do Exactly the Opposite of What Democrats Do”) was never going to happen. ... Congrats! That’s how you manage to garner a 17% approval rating for a plan to repeal something that is about as popular as herpes.".......

Solution: Mandatory Herpes Coverage!

Or freedom.