In an appearance on Fox News on Sunday, former senior adviser and spokesperson to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and president and CEO of endeavor strategic communications Kurt Bardella argued that congressional Republicans are doing the will of the people by fighting Obamacare in the Continuing Resolution (CR).
“I think what you’ve seen in the last 48 hours is Republicans come together and unite behind a common message and a common strategy,” Bardella said. “They believe, at the end of the day, that listening to their constituents–that’s who they’re listening to, that’s what’s dictating how the Republican caucus is moving, is the American people. And they have said to them that we don’t want Obamacare. We know there are tons of things in this that are going to take into effect in three days. We need to stop it right now and that’s what they’re doing.”
Bardella added that despite the cries of “urgency” from congressional Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s failure to call the Senate back to work on Sunday speaks volumes. Bardella cited a new poll from San Diego, the nation’s eighth largest city that just elected a Democratic mayor. In that poll of the politically purple region, Bardella noted, 44 percent to 29 percent people were against Obamacare and people were 50 percent to 20 percent in favor of tying Obamacare defunding to the CR. “So when you look at what’s actually going on on the ground in places like San Diego, or Vermont or Connecticut, where it has been public that this exchange, this Obamacare implementation isn’t going to work the way they said it would,” Bardella said. “This goes up on Tuesday, and the administration’s having to concede it’s not going to work. They’ve amended it 19 times since the passage of Obamacare. “
Bardella added that a government shutdown would not be that bad for Republicans in the grander political scheme of things. “At the end of the day, in November 2014, people are not going to remember some random budgetary process question,” Bardella said. “They’re going to remember whether their healthcare premiums went up, whether it was harder for them to get care, whether or not they could keep good on the president’s promise that if you like your care right now, you can keep it after Obamacare passes. That’s not going to be the case and that’s going to get a lot of Democrats in trouble.”