James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal points out that candidate Obama was against a federal mandate requiring citizens to buy health insurance. His opponent, Hillary Clinton, was in favor of a mandate and so Obama opposed it.
At a debate in February 2008 Senator O said:
"Sen. Clinton believes the only way to achieve universal health care is to force everybody to purchase it. And my belief is, the reason that people don't have it is not because they don't want it but because they can't afford it."
Of course when the House ramrodded the Senate version of Obamacare through in the dead of night it contained the mandate. Obama cheered the bill and the outrageous Pelosi maneuver that would eventually cost his party 63 seats and control of the House.
And now it's clear that the mandate may be the undoing of the whole miserable law. Republicans don't seem particularly cheerful these days, but just think of what their opponents have done. They passed a bill so wildly unpopular it gave Republicans an electoral tidal wave that was unimaginable in 2008. And, even better, the law they passed may very well be Dead On Arrival.
The tired phrase WIN-WIN leaps to mind.
