Where Will GOP Take Fumbled Ball?

As I noted Saturday, the lawlessness of the president's ObamaCare "fix" really bothers me. I am glad to see, based on this Instapundit post and this Mark Steyn column, that I am hardly alone. From the latter, it would appear that even Howard Dean has a problem with the move:

"I wonder if he has the legal authority to do this," mused former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. But he's obviously some kind of right-wing wacko. Later that day, anxious to help him out, Congress offered to "pass" a "law" allowing people to keep their health plans. The same president who had unilaterally commanded that people be allowed to keep their health plans indignantly threatened to veto any such law to that effect: It only counts if he does it - geddit? As his court eunuchs at the Associated Press obligingly put it: "Obama Will Allow Old Plans." It's Barry's world; we just live in it.

Barack Obama is handing the Republicans a golden opportunity, but what will they do with it? If, as Michael Hurd recently noted, they turn to someone like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, they will blow it, win or lose:

Republicans are unwilling to defend the right of the individual against the state in unequivocal terms.

If you doubt me, consider the words of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie:

"Our people are hurting. Now is the time when we all must resist the traditional, selfish call to protect your own turf at the cost of our state. It is time to leave the corner, join the sacrifice, come to the center of the room and be part of the solution."

And actions flow from political philosophy, as Hurd makes clear much later:

Chris Christie ... will claim that government should be smaller and leaner. He will make this claim in the name of selfless self-sacrifice. Because his underlying premise is self-sacrifice, government welfare and entitlements will continue to grow, just as they have under all Republican presidents before him.

Call Obama incompetent or dictatorial or both, I don't care: the best bet to make damned sure we are stuck with ObamaCare permanently will be this: Some "adult" like Christie enters office and, wrongly conceding ObamaCare to be a good idea, but badly executed, "fixes" it.

We don't just need the Democrats to start losing elections: We need the victors to quit recycling their policies, and repeal them instead.

-- CAV