Missouri Democrats Who Helped Pass Anti ObamaCare Proposition Complicate Media Coverage
By Kevin Mooney
As momentum continues to build against the coercive, mandatory requirements of ObamaCare, The New York Times is pinning its hopes on a dismissive narrative buried inside the newspaper’s national news section. Although an overwhelming majority of Missouri residents voted in favor of a proposition that would cancel out a key provision of President Obama’s healthcare law, the results do not necessarily translate over into any larger national trend, the NYT lectures readers.
“Practically speaking, it remains entirely uncertain what effect the vote will have,” a recent report claims. “The insurance requirement of the federal health care law does not come into effect until 2014. By then, experts say, the courts are likely to weigh in on the provision requiring people to buy insurance.”
But the vote’s impact is already being felt in regions outside of Missouri’s borders. Proposition C marks the beginning, not the end, of state level ballot initiatives that would amend their state constitutions to guard against federal encroachment. Moreover, there are now 22 states that have filed suit against ObamaCare.
Proposition C is not occurring in vacuum, yet the NYT is now peddling the idea that only “conservative activists” are responsible for the lopsided result. If so, it would logically follow that the measure went down to defeat the Democratic-leaning areas of the state. But this is not the case. Proposition C passed in every county except St. Louis and Kansas City. The real story here concerns the separation that exists between the Washington, D.C. Democrats and their own party members back home.
This reality great complicates the liberal media’s agenda and must therefore be submerged within reports that identify Proposition C with fringe groups that do not speak for mainstream voters who helped elect President Obama.
“Before the vote, the referendum had not appeared to capture the general population’s attention with any broad, statewide media campaign,” the report observes. “Republican primary voters (who had the most competitive races on Tuesday) appeared to play a key role in the vote’s fate; far more voters (577,612) cast ballots in the state’s Republican primary for an open United States Senate seat as cast ballots for the Democratic candidates (315,787).”
And yet it has captured the attention and interest of voters who do not necessarily align themselves with the conservative movement. Proposition C passed with 668,770 votes in favor, more than 90,000 people who voted in the Republican primary. So, some Democrats indeed supported it.
The spin here suggests that because Republican races were more competitive more of those voters showed up. But the fact that Democrats still felt animated to show and vote in favor of Proposition C despite a bland primary election cycle, is also suggestive.
The headline here could have read: Missouri Democrats Join with Tea Party Activists to Pass Anti Obama-Care Proposition By Large Margin.
But that doesn’t fit the narrative.
Kevin Mooney is a contributing editor to ALG News and the Executive Editor of TimesCheck.com.
