What Missouri showed me

One of the most interesting of Tuesday night’s primary results came in Missouri’s Proposition C. What did Missouri show us? In the words of the joke: The peasants are revolting.
Proposition C asked voters whether Missouri law was to be amended to deny the government authority to penalize citizens for refusing to purchase private health insurance or infringe upon the right to offer or accept direct payment for lawful health care services. To the extent that Missouri law now conflicts with Obamacare and Obamacare is constitutional, Missouri law will have to give way.
Surely it’s time to get Eric Holder on the case. The Obama administration should now sue Missouri, or at least send its friends at the SEIU out to knock some more heads.
Proposition C did not address other provisions of Obamacare, such as the prohibition of preexisting conditions or the all-important right to keep slackers on their parents coverage until age 26. It nevertheless gave voters the opportunity to stick a symbolic fork in the heart of Obamacare. That is what Missouri voters did.
Republican won 65 percent of the two-party vote in Missouri. Voters expressed their opposition to the Obamacare mandate in Proposition C by 71 percent to 29 percent. Opposition to the keystone of Obamacare seems to have grown since the passage of the bill, at least among motivated voters. Proposition C carried all 115 counties in Missouri. Michael Barone crunches the numbers.
Democratic candidates for higher office in Missouri such as Robin Carnahan will now have to straddle the gulf between their base voters and the predominant sentiment of voters across the state. Before Tuesday’s vote, Carnahan was on record opposing Proposition C. James Taranto construes a somewhat cryptic Carnahan statement regarding Proposition C here. I would guess she’ll start running now to get out in front of the crowd.
By one calculation, 15 percent percent of ballots that were cast in the Democratic Senate primary statewide supported Proposition C. By the same calculation, even in St Louis City, almost 20 percent of the ballots cast just for Robin Carnahan also supported Proposition C. It seems fair to say that “when 1 in 6 Democratic primary votes decide they want the state of Missouri to defend them from the signature issue of the Democratic Party, you’ve got a recipe for electoral disaster.” Democratic electoral disaster.

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