Republican efforts to repeal President Barack Obama’s massive healthcare law will succeed, political analyst Dick Morris tells Newsmax.TV. The campaign consultant and best-selling author described House Republican plans to press a vote on the matter as merely the opening salvo in a long battle.
“It’s the beginning of a long, yearlong process, a battle over Obamacare, and I believe the Republicans will win that battle,” he said.
Morris rejected characterizations that the move of newly empowered House Republicans to vote on repeal is a futile gesture. Instead, he suggested that it is the first in a series of strategic moves that will lead to repeal.
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First comes the House vote, he explained. If the Senate also moved to repeal, President Obama would veto the measure. Regardless of any Senate or White House move, the next step would be defunding the measure, which also would bring a veto.
The final step would be to attach the defunding to measures Obama cannot veto, such as an extension of the debt limit or the budget.
The Newsmax contributor and Fox News analyst also predicted that House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has little to fear from tea party watchdogs.
“Watchdogs bark, and their job is to watch him and push him and move him to the right and I think that’s entirely legitimate,” he said. “But I do think that Boehner is a solid conservative, and I think the Republican ranks will tend to be united rather than divided as this year progresses.”
Handicapping the GOP presidential field, Morris said he does not think that such top names as former Govs. Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin, or former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, ultimately would be successful in winning the Republican nomination.
They carry too much baggage, he said. Romney, for example, passed his own healthcare reform measure while governor of Massachusetts that one legitimately could call “Romneycare,” Morris said.
Comparing the GOP race for the nomination to TV’s “American Idol,” Morris said the understudy class of Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn.; Gov. Mitch Daniels, R-Ind.; Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.; Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind.; Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La.; Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.; Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J.; and former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn., all deserve a shot.
On the question of who should be the next chairman of the Republican National Committee, Morris thought Michael Steele should be replaced but did not have a candidate of his own.
“I think that Steele is a very good man, but I don’t think he did a very good job as chairman,” he said. “While he was fairly successful at raising money he was not successful at not spending the money and as a result the national committee was really not a big force in the 2010 elections or in the efforts against Obamacare.”
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