FORGET ABOUT ACORN FOR THE TIME BEING; FOCUS ON OBAMACARE, IT IS THE IMMEDIATE THREAT TO THE U.S.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Andrew Breitbart knows media,

and if any network executive is looking for the next programming genius, he'll reach out and grab the internet entrepreneur as head of programming.

The roll out of the ACORN videos from James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles via Big Government and various cable shows such as Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity has been brilliant.

The story is dominating the news, even as the MSM embarrasses itself by ignoring it. As long as more videos keep appearing, the story will continue to indelibly brand ACORN as a tax-payer supported front group for radical politics and unethical and even criminal pathologies.

The ACORN expose, though, is draining attention from Obamacare at a crucial moment. Senator Rockefeller announced yesterday that he can't live with Senator Baucus' "compromise," a signal that the left side of the Senate Democratic caucus will be looking for a much more expensive program than the so-called "moderate" bill pushed by Baucus, one that will take an already spiraling deficit far beyond anything imagined even six months ago when the stimulus passed. The Baucus bill is built on devastating cuts to Medicare and the embedded rationing of all the other forms of Obamacare. It is not a "compromise" in any sense of the word, and it has no "bipartisan" support, but MSM is already gathering around it as a "favored" solution in the eyes of the media elite. Push-back and continued opposition to it and all the other versions of Obamacare is crucial now and throughout the fall.

The center-right has to be able to watch and participate in two stories at the same time, but its primary focus has to be on Obamacare, and especially on communicating the message that a vote for Obamacare will define every House and Senate member up for election in 2010. The only way to defeat all but the most benign of face-saving measures is by the accumulation of pressure on the Blue Dogs and the vulnerable Democratic senators like Arkansas' Blanche Lincoln, Colorado's Michael Bennett and even the majority Leader Harry Reid. Very soon the voters in Virginia and New Jersey will get to send a message about the country's direction, and hopefully it will be an unmistakable rejection of the huge lurch to the left that the president has led, supported by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. In the meantime, the very best way to communicate opposition to Obamacare --in the language best understood by Democratic incumbents fearful of their re-election-- is a contribution to the Republican House and Senate campaign committees, the NRCC and the NRSC.

The protest in D.C. this past weekend was another wake-up call to Democratic legislators, as has been the extraordinary turn-out at town halls this past August. But if that pressure isn't maintained and maintained in visible, tangible ways, the Blue Dogs will fold again, and the president will muscle his bill through the Senate on the strength of 50 votes plus Joe Biden. By all means watch and learn from the ACORN videos, and spread the word to your friends and family about the amazing story that the legacy media refuses to cover for fear of hurting their guy in the Oval Office. But also keep pushing to stop Obamacare. The president's speech last week was a complete bust when it came to changing public opinion.

The effort to mark the passing of Senator Kennedy with the passing of Obamacare was similarly a non-starter. It would be ironic if the event that saved Obamacare by draining away the attention and passion of its opponents was a triumph of conservative media.

Sincerely,

Hugh Hewitt