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Erica Werner
Congress reporter with a focus on economic policy
An increasing number of Republican candidates are very similar to Democrats as they face mid-term elections, picking up Democratic discussion topics on issues ranging from health care to funding education to the #MeToo movement.
Republicans across the country have begun campaigning for the protection of the insured of people with pre-existing health problems, a pillar of President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act – although the Korean government has spent years trying to repeal the law.
In Arizona, Wisconsin and elsewhere, conservative GOP governors, known for their conflict with teachers, are now campaigning for commitments to increase teacher pay or student spending.
After the bitter fight over Brett M. Kavanaugh's appointment to the Supreme Court, a handful of Republicans are trying to tip the #MeToo movement against Democrats on charges of sexual mischief or aggression against their opponents .
Poll after poll shows health care as the main issue for voters. Democrats have repeatedly said that the GOP, which seeks to repeal the Affordable Care Act, will deprive Americans of basic coverage for those with pre-existing health conditions. In the final stretch of the campaign, Republican messages are partly a recognition of the fact that the Democratic argument echoed with voters.
And on other issues, with their control of Congress and states at risk, Republicans seem to have concluded that the best offense is a good defense.
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"I think it's a defensive maneuver, a sign that the messages of the Democrats have started to leak some blood with the attacks, and that the Republicans are trying to react forcefully," said Nathan Gonzales, editor of Inside Elections, a non-partisan newsletter.
The health care situation arises after several election cycles in which Democrats have been confronted with unrelenting Republican attacks for the passage of the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, in 2010. The Republicans sought to repeal and replace the law, lines of attack that proved effective in their campaigns. But once they gained unified control of Washington with Donald Trump's election to the presidency two years ago, they failed.
Since then, the Affordable Care Act has become more popular and it is the Democrats who are now attacking the Republicans for trying to remove the protections that the Americans have relied on, forcing the Republicans to respond.
In Missouri, Senate candidate Josh Hawley is one of the Republican attorneys general who filed a lawsuit earlier this year, arguing that Obamacare was unconstitutional. It became a flashpoint in his campaign against Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, who accuses Hawley of trying to score political points against Obamacare while removing the protection of the people.
But recently, Hawley began broadcasting an ad in which he revealed that one of his young sons was suffering from a rare chronic disease and proclaimed, "We know what it looks like. . . . I support obliging insurance companies to cover all pre-existing conditions ".
Hawley argues that pre-existing conditions may be covered outside the context of the Affordable Care Act. It would require insurers to offer plans to people with pre-existing illnesses at the same price as everyone else, while giving the federal government the responsibility to cover insurance costs in excess of $ 10,000.
Health experts believe the cost could escalate for consumers – and for the federal government – opportunities that Hawley's proposal ignores.
In Pennsylvania, GOP representative Lou Barletta, Senate candidate against Democrat Robert P. Casey Jr., posted a moving video on Twitter over the weekend in which he discusses his young grandson being treated for cancer – and Casey lambastes to broadcast an announcement accusing Barletta of voting to limit the protections afforded to people with pre-existing diseases.
During his years in the House, Barletta has voted dozens of times in favor of repealing or recasting the Affordable Care Act.
In Wisconsin, GOP Governor Scott Walker posted a video in which he told viewers that his wife was diabetic, that his mother was a breast cancer survivor, and that his brother had heart disease.
"Covering pre-existing conditions is personal," says Walker in the video. "What's more, it's the right thing to do." Wisconsin, like Missouri, is among the states that are taking legal action to overthrow Obamacare.
The position of the GOP becomes difficult to defend because many current members of Congress have voted several times to abolish Obamacare. The bill on the repeal of health care by the government that was passed in the House last year would have maintained the obligation for insurers to cover people with pre-existing illnesses, but unlike the current legislation, much higher rates would have been charged to them; the law died in the Senate.
The issue was addressed Monday during a debate in Arizona, where two sitting members of Parliament are competing for a seat in the Senate: Democratic Representative Kyrsten Sinema and GOP Representative Martha McSally.
While Sinema spoke of McSally's votes overthrowing Obamacare and his protections, McSally angrily accused him of perpetuating an "absolute lie." Mentioning ads across the country, McSally said, "Democrats have nothing to begrudge themselves and they are so much the choice to play with fear."
Last May, McSally mobilized his Republican colleagues to support the repealing and replacing bill, inviting his colleagues to an in camera meeting before voting to achieve it, with a focus on focus.
While the Democrats are focusing on the issue, it may be because they discovered that it worked to their advantage.
"Democrats have spent millions of dollars on polls and focus groups that have led them to conclude that using pre-existing conditions as a central issue would help them either convince voters to sing or to motivate. their base, "said Chris Wilson, a GOP investigator working on races around the country. He criticized the Democrats for leading "cookie-cutter" campaigns on the issue, but acknowledged that Republicans can not allow attacks to go unanswered for too long.
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Health care is not the only problem where Republicans offer proposals that are more generally heard from Democrats. After a national wave of teacher releases, a number of Republican governors and gubernatorial candidates hold promises of maintaining or increasing spending on education. These include Walker in Wisconsin, Governor Doug Ducey in Arizona and Republican Attorney General Adam Laxalt in Nevada.
In Texas, Republican Senator Ted Cruz announced: "It's time to give teachers and other civil servants a fair pension award" and signed bipartite legislation to adapt an accounting formula to limit benefits Social Security for employees in the public sector. Last March, Cruz voted with his party to overthrow an Obama administration rule aimed at stimulating the creation of retirement accounts for private sector workers.
And among the Kavanaugh audience fallout, with surveys showing a growing rift in favor of Democrats among voters, Republicans have presented a number of hypocritical Democrats to women's rights by pointing to accusations that they have committed assault or sexual assault. each case, using the language of the #MeToo movement.
In Ohio, for example, a team consisting of a Republican candidate and a political PAC put Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) on the defensive. Me Too Ohio, a group founded by Republicans last month, aired TV spots calling on Brown to resign following accusations made during his divorce in 1986 with his first wife. In an affidavit, Larke Recchie said that Brown had "intimidated" her and once pushed her into a fight.
"His ex-wife and other women have the right to be believed," said a narrator in the first advertisement of Mr. Too Ohio.
Representative James B. Renacci (R-Ohio), Brown's challenger, immediately echoed the demands of advertising. In their first debate on Sunday night, Renacci said that Democrats like Brown, who opposed the appointment of Kavanaugh, had put in place a moral test that they could not pass.
"They said that if you adhere to that standard of conduct, an unsubstantiated claim, you could not serve in Washington," Renacci said. "You are starting to better define a standard of conduct for justified claims. "
Recchie asked Renacci and the Republicans to stop using divorce registers in their election campaign; for the first time, she appears in a television commercial, in which she says that she is "proud" of Brown as a senator and as a father and grandfather. During the debate, Brown stared directly at Renacci and declared that the Republican was hurting a family that did not ask to be thrown into politics.
"You should be ashamed of yourself," Brown said.
Even the handful of Democrats who supported Kavanaugh were the object of Republican attacks. At the confirmation hearings, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) Began attacking her opponent Phil Bredesen for dealing with sexual harassment complaints while he was governor. After Bredesen expressed his support for Kavanaugh, Blackburn continued his attack, describing the Democrat as an enemy of women.
"Phil took a little time to make his mind up," Blackburn said at their last debate last week in Knoxville. "It could have been because of sexual harassment of claims against his administration, when he was governor. "
In his defense, Bredesen said that there had been a problem with an employee.
"We got rid of him. We tried to help the victim all the ways we could, "he says.
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