By Kevin Mooney — Big government activists knew they were going to lose this one going into it.
On Tuesday, Missouri became the first of at least three states to vote on a ballot measure aimed against a key component of President Obama’s healthcare overhaul. By a margin of 71 percent to 29 percent, voters approved Proposition C, which invalidated the new federal law requiring individuals to either buy health insurance or pay a tax. The vote could add momentum to other efforts at the state level aimed against ObamaCare.
This would explain why the New York Times saw fit to run an article that made every effort to dismiss Proposition C as an inconsequential, low-turnout affair fueled by Tea Party activists who do not speak for mainstream opinion.
Proposition C is politically meaningless because it is only popular among a core group of activists who will be washed out by larger national trends over time, the NYT suggests.
“The referendum on the measure, known as Proposition C, is seen as an organizational test for the Tea Party and like-minded conservatives in a swing state that President Obama lost narrowly in 2008 and that has since moved measurably away from him,” the report says.
“But the campaign has been a low-key affair, with no television advertising, debates or celebrity Facebook endorsements. Leading Democrats, from Mr. Obama to Gov. Jay Nixon, have kept their distance, seeing little to be gained by contesting what strategists dismiss as a Republican straw poll with a foregone conclusion. The most competitive elections in Tuesday’s primary are on the Republican side, meaning turnout should be higher among those with natural sympathies for Proposition C.”
But even The Times is forced to concede that a majority of likely Democratic voters were not likely to vote against the proposal. It could become politically difficult for the Obama Administration to implement a law that lacks significant support in both major political parties; a point that goes missing in the report.
Moreover, the Tea Party’s connection to Proposition C is indicative of support that extends beyond the orbit of Republican and Democratic establishments. There is more at work here than just a narrow slice of the Republican establishment oriented against Obama’s policies for political reasons. There is a now a renewed interest in the values of the founding period that has helped galvanize efforts like Proposition C. The NYT and other liberal media outlets do not understand this phenomenon because from their perspective American began with New Deal, not with the Constitutional Convention.
Just one day after the Tea Party victory in Missouri, Ennis joined with other CORE activists for a Tea Party event in D.C. the featured prominent black Americans who support the restoration of limited, constitutional government. That’s kind of news that does not fit with the NYT narrative. Neither does the 3-1 vote in favor Missouri’s Proposition C, which is buried on the lower right corner of the newspaper’s national news section in the day after coverage.
