Dem. Senate Aide: White House 'S–t The Bed' On ObamaCare Rollout

In response to Minimum wage distractions:

Heck yeah, they’re looking for distractions. 

Spurred by panicked Democrat Senators, a hush-hush meeting was held between Sen. Michael Bennet (Colo.), chairman of the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm and White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, late last month.

Democratic senators fear the White House is not sympathetic enough to their plight. After the government shutdown, they were confident they would retain the Senate, but optimism vanished as problems with the healthcare law mounted.

“I know these guys are nervous as hell,” said a second senior Democratic aide. “I mean, all of their jobs are on the line because this is the thing making the biggest waves lately. It’s a nightmare.”

The aide said the meeting, which took place late last month in Bennet’s Senate office, was aimed at making sure the White House communicated more with the committee.

Since then, the White House has “increased communication and been in regular contact with senators with both data related to the healthcare law, and in coordinating messaging.”

Well, I think this new partnership is already seeing dividends. After all, Harry Reid’s lame defense of Obama’s “you can keep you plan” lie, earlier this week is basically a badly articulated version of what Jay Carney has been arguing all along. (I hope they have a plan B. “Coordinated messaging” doesn’t work if no one buys your BS.)

Schadenfreude alert: One Senate aide told The Hill,  the White House had “s–t the bed” and “the president’s sinking approval ratings are an additional problem.”

“Everyone recognizes that our electoral process is tied to the president’s standings,” the aide said. “I think it’s in everyone’s best interest to get the site working again.”

Yeah, Obama’s losing the support of two key Democrat demographics – young people, and white women. Democrats have every reason to be “nervous as hell.”

Overall, the White House and Democrats are more confident this week about the healthcare law, given improvements to HealthCare.gov. White House officials said that approximately 1 million people visited the site Monday.

White House aides have maintained that as soon the website is properly functioning, users will be able to see all the benefits of ObamaCare. 

“The policy will take care of the politics,” senior officials have said repeatedly.

Well, here’s the policy and the politics – Five million people who were repeatedly lied to about keeping their plans, lost their plans. Now they’re being forced to get on a glitchy, insecure website to buy (in many cases) more expensive plans. 

I’d be changing the conversation, too.