Conservatives shower Romney with cash after the Supreme Court upholds President Obama's health care law, giving Romney an edge, at least for now
Mitt Romney's presidential campaign said early Friday that it had hauled in $4.2 million in a fundraising blitz since the Supreme Court upheld President Obama's health-care law on Thursday. Romney made a personal appeal to donors, saying, "If we want to get rid of ObamaCare, we're going to have to replace President Obama." The Obama campaign also tried to capitalize on the ruling to raise cash, saying keeping Obama in the White House will stop Republicans from repealing ObamaCare. Judging by Romney's windfall, is he the one who's gaining an edge from the court's landmark decision?
Yes. The ruling has set off a Romney fundraising bonanza: Romney has been promising to repeal ObamaCare all along, says Ed Morrissey at Hot Air. "That certainly had fired up Tea Party activists," but, thanks partly to his own health-care mandates in Massachusetts, they "haven't trusted Romney to get it done." Judging from Romney's fundraising haul in the hours after the court's ruling, the cash is rolling in because Tea Partiers are 100 percent behind Romney now.
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Actually, this gives Obama a strong selling point: Obama couldn't ask for a better way to showcase what his supporters are getting for their money and their votes, Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic strategist from Massachusetts, tells The Boston Globe. The ruling "allows Obama to say, 'I'm fighting for you. Whether or not it's popular, I'm working hard to do the right thing. Re-elect me.'"
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This is a boon to Romney... for now: Romney's cash haul is a sign he'll benefit from "blowback to the ruling within Republican ranks," says Chris Cillizza at The Washington Post. Plenty of Democrats are fired up, too, but ObamaCare "has consistently been viewed more unfavorably than favorably" in polls over the last two years, so, on balance, it should give Romney an edge. But Romney shouldn't expect the money to keep pouring in. Democrats have plenty of time to get voters to warm to ObamaCare between now and November.
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