Interesting Interview Of David Axelrod (With Update)

From HuffPo:

One of the president's closest advisers said on Tuesday that Republican opponents of health care reform let down their guard following Sen. Scott Brown's election in Massachusetts, in the process allowing Democrats and the administration to make a final, successful push for the bill.

In an interview with the Huffington Post hours after the president signed health care reform into law, senior adviser David Axelrod pointed to that special election in late January as a pivotal point in the long path to passing legislation.

"Some of the steam went out of the opposition after that," Axelrod said. "I think that people felt like they had made a statement. Perhaps they felt like they had killed health care reform... They thought the fight was over. And that [the president] couldn't now succeed. I do believe that. And it is almost as if they had made the statement that they thought they had stopped the thing. And so it created a breathing space for us to regroup." * * *

I think Axelrod makes a good point, but he and the rest of the Obama Administration need to beware of falling into the same trap. If the Dems for one minute think that momentum is on their side on this and that they can sit on their hands with regard to Health Care Reform, they should think again. The GOP has promised to come after them with everything they've got, and I expect that will happen.

I know that the most recent Gallup poll showed 49 percent approval and 40 percent disapproval of the health care reform law, but all the polls before that showed that most people opposed the reform. The polls basically reversed themselves overnight, and that can easily happen again.

What the Democrats need to do now is launch a spoiling attack against the GOP. Obama should travel all over the country and speak on this issue (I heard he was in fact going to do that). The Democrats and their surrogates should launch blistering attack ads on all the Republicans who opposed this bill (which is ALL of them).

One ad should attack Republicans individually. It should simply lay out the reforms, and then close with "Call Representative So-and-So and ask him why he and the rest of the Republicans opposed a bill that actually reduced the deficit and extended Medicare solvency by at least nine years and provided health coverage to 32 million Americans who didn't have it before."

I have a feeling that a lot of Democrats think this new law will basically sell itself, but that won't happen if they let the GOP frame the debate during the run-up to the Mid-Terms.

UPDATE: This new Health Care Reform law is so full of GOP ideas that I have no doubt Republicans will soon be coming out and taking credit for most of it. Of course, this won't happen right away, because the current Republican plan is to oppose All Things Obama (even if it was a Republican idea to begin with -- e.g., the Deficit Reduction Panel) and, as everyone knows, the GOP is masterful at keeping its people in line and there is no way in hell that . . . .

Wait! ... What's this? Could it be true . . . ?

GOP Senator Chuck Grassley takes credit for health care reform! That didn't take long.

Any bets on who will be the next Republican domino to fall? I pick Rep. Peter King of New York.