The following article, by Democratic strategist Robert Creamer, author of Listen to Your Mother: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, is cross-posted from HuffPo:
Like the hero in a James Bond or Indiana Jones movie, Obamacare has faced new mortal threats at every turn. And like James Bond or Indiana Jones, each time it has emerged unscathed when the smoke of battle cleared.
After it was proposed five years ago, pundits and political commentators declared Obamacare dead on dozens of occasions. It was assailed in television commercials supported by the insurance industry. Supportive members of Congress were pummeled by tea party extremists financed by right-wing billionaires like the Koch brothers.
Once it was passed, the right launched a massive movement for repeal. Dozens of Republican governors refused to cooperate with its implementation. Republican attorneys general challenged its constitutionality in courts across America.
The law became a centerpiece in the frantic right-wing campaign to stop the reelection of President Obama.
And finally, the tea party Republicans made their last ditch-effort to take the government itself hostage — to shutdown the federal government if the law was not defunded or delayed.
But in the end, every desperate right wing attempt to stop Obamacare failed. The attacks failed because of the energy of Obamacare supporters — and the iron will of President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
Today, the most important provisions of the law finally take effect. Americans who could not previously afford health insurance — or who had a pre-existing condition that prevented them from qualifying for health insurance — can now go to one of the new insurance exchange website and get finally covered.
Today, America joins the company of every other major industrial democracy in declaring, in practice, that access to health care is no longer a privilege, but a right.
Of course — from their perspective — the ideological extremists who fueled opposition to Obamacare were right. The Affordable Care Act expands the realm of relationships in America that are in fact defined by progressive values. It expands on the increasing number of commitments our country has made throughout its history to create a truly democratic society where everyone has a right to the basic necessities of life not because he or she is lucky or smart — but because he or she is our fellow human being.
The Affordable Care Act is part of a long line of legislative initiatives that have made good on the promissory note given to every American by our country’s founding documents — that every one is owed an opportunity to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the eight-hour day, child labor laws, the civil rights bill, the minimum wage and so many other critical progressive initiatives, the Affordable Care Act is an acknowledgement that the promise of America was made to everyone — whether a person is healthy or sick, rich or poor, born to a hedge fund operator in Greenwich, Connecticut or a poor rural farmer in Greenwood, Mississippi.
Every one of those initiatives was fought tooth and nail by the political right. But once they were passed and became the law of the land, they came to define the progressive tradition that for most Americans embodies those qualities in our country about which we are most proud.

Read more…

At The Washington Monthly Ed Kilgore has been posting on the Republican’s meme strategy for the shutdown. From Kilgore’s post on “Surfing False Equivalence“:

Every time you hear low-information Women and Men on the Street express frustration over politicians “behaving like children” and having “sandbox fights,” you are hearing a vote for a “compromise” between the disabling of Obamacare and the appropriations status quo (including a sequestration most Democrats oppose) to resolve the “crisis.”
Every time you hear highly-paid pundits complain about “extremists in both parties” creating “gridlock” and “stalemate” and economic peril, you are hearing the scrape of a chair being pulled up to a table where Republicans will have a “seat” to present their demands as though they are one side of a difference of opinion.
Since the White House and congressional Democrats have refused to cave right away, and the initial polling looks really bad for the GOP, false equivalence is their best and perhaps only weapon. Watch it fire again and again.

In another post, “Weapons Dealers,” Kilgore cites some specific examples of false equivalence jockeying, including:

1) WaPo: In shutdown blame game, Democrats and Republicans united: It’s the other side’s fault
2) TIME: Shutdown: Obama and Republicans Trade Blame as Deadline is Crossed
3) Fox: Partial shutdown begins: Can Congress, White House Compromise?
4) MLive: Reactions to government shutdown: Is it “wanton destruction” by Republicans or a lack of compromise from Democrats?
5) USAToday: House, Senate parry on “Obamacare” as shutdown imminent
Maybe such headlines reflect laziness and ignorance rather than silent partisanship, but they are more effective instruments for the GOP position than the fieriest Ted Cruz speech.

In yet another post, “Christie’s Phony Triangulation,” Kilgore nails Gov. Christie for his baloney diagnosis that “No matter where the partisanship is, the failure is in people not bringing people together to get it done.” Christie brags that he would pull everyone together and “say that we’re not leaving this room until we fix this problem.” Presto ! Natch, the MSM took the bait again.
As Kilgore has tweeted, the GOP scam depends on “false equivalence promoted by high-exposure pundits to low-information voters.”

If the real purpose of the Republican shutdown of the federal government was to blow the debut of the Affordable Care Act exchange marketplaces off the front pages of newspapers and lead stories of TV news, it succeeded beyond the GOP’s hopes.
As we go to press, for example, there are no above-the-fold stories spotlighting the debut of Obamacare exchanges on The New York Times electronic edition front page. You have to scroll down, way down, to see the small type headline “Text: Obama’s Remarks on the Budget and Health Law.”
Ditto for the Washington Post, except their small type headline “Lane: What the GOP missed on Obamacare” is perched in the “Opinion” box, not too far below the electronic “fold,” and a little lower in the box they have “Wemple: Fox News has lost it on Obamacare” and then the WaPo editorial Board’s “Obamacare’s Big Moment” and “Site to buy Obamacare policies is ready, but glitches likely, officials warn.” Other stories in both of the top newspapers referenced Obamacare only in connection to the Shutdown.
On the front page of USA Today‘s electronic edition, the nations 3rd ranking in circulation numbers, there were no separate stories about the opening of the health care exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. It was mentioned in one headline in connection with the shutdown. Damn near all other headlines were about the shutdown.
At the number one in circulation Wall St. Journal, again nothing above the fold, but you can scroll far down to the “health” box for three stories about the ACA exchanges debut. Credit the L.A. Times (4th in circulation), however, with one interesting barely above-the-fold headline and sub-head, “Lazarus: GOP will stop at nothing to deny Obama his due on healthcare reform: The outlandish rhetoric over the Affordable Care Act has nothing to do with healthcare or the role of government. It’s about not giving Obama credit for it.”
I didn’t survey broadcast media, But the top morning political talk show, Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinsk tried to give the ACA exchanges debut a plug in their lede, but was quickly smothered by a tsunami of predictable jabber about the shutdown. UPDATE: ‘Morning Joe’ did provide a short segment on the ACA exchanges featuring progressive commentators later in the program.
MSN.com, a top home web page in terms of hits, did feature “Glitches or not, health exchanges are here” above the fold, but nothing on the ACA exchange roll-out in the 9 larger-type rotating headlines.
Wingnut media strategists are no doubt slapping high fives at spoiling the debut of the health exchanges, which, on a normal day would have gotten most of the headlines and ledes, encouraging people to sign up. The Republican strategy was to use the temporary shutdown to shrink the number of enrollees on the important first day. Mission accomplished, although we will have to wait until a tally is completed to get some inkling of how successful they were.
The hope for ACA supporters is that the shutdown will backfire, as seems likely according to recent polls, and hurt Republicans in 2014. See, for example, this just-released report, “American Voters Reject GOP Shutdown Strategy 3-1, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Dems Up 9 Points in 2014 Congressional Races.”
But the Republicans are counting, not without reason, on the short memory of the electorate and a whole different set of voter concerns a year from now. The other hope for the ACA is that the benefits of the law will increasingly sink in and enrollment figures will improve significantly in the months ahead.
Boehner and the GOP leaders calculated that they would get bad press for a few days before they cut a deal, and that it was a small price to pay for damaging the Obamacare health exchanges grand opening. All would be forgotten when voters go to the polls 13 months from now. It’s up to Dems to prove them wrong.