The Last Rockefeller Republican's blog

Erick Erickson of Redstate.com has called for a boycott of the NRSC after that body endorsed Gov. Charlie Crist for Mel Martinez's seat over Marco Rubio.

Crist's popularity makes him as close to a sure thing as the Republican Party can find for an empty seat in the election - but Rubio is much more appealing to the base. Rubio's youth, Cuban ethnicity and Catholicism are also a breath of fresh air in a party whose national figures (McConnell, Boehner, McCain, Romney et. al.) are short on all three of those characteristics.

Rubio might do better do stay in Florida and run for Governor - a successful term in the Governor's office would make him 2016 Presidential timber. But he hasn't stepped aside, which would lead to a primary race that would be a microcosm of the broader fight between Republican moderates and right-wingers over the direction the Party should go in.

I like Rubio. His ethnic and religious background, as well as his outsider status, are both welcome breaths of fresh air in a party that hasn't really produced any new figures that are taken seriously outside the party's base. He'd also be a very competitive candidate in a battleground state, and if he won he'd be a valuable asset to the Republican candidate in 2016. Despite this, I think he should stand down in favor of Crist - he's as close to a sure thing as can be found for Republicans this election cycle. He'd free up money and other resources to help Republicans on shakier ground, like Mark Kirk in Illinois. And his already-high national profile would only be increased by a successful Senate campaign. Coming form what has been the quintessential battleground state in the last three elections, he would be a highly visible spokesman for the Republican platform in D.C.

The NRSC is not backing down on the endorsement of Crist over Rubio, specifically attacking the "30 senators" stance made famous by Jim DeMint. With Rubio not ceding to the will of the party, things could get ugly in Florida. Who do you think will win? Who should win? And will the donnybrook in the primaries give the Democrats a shot at the seat?

As both Democrats and Republicans sharpen their swords and gear up for the battle over health care reform, Republicans have been searching for an argument that will sway the American people to their side on this issue. President Obama and his allies will, presumably, reference the fact that 45 million Americans are currently uninsured and suggest that opponents of his plan are keeping those Americans from being covered. That will be difficult to counter - who wants to be seen as keeping 45 million Americans from being able to see their doctors or get the treatments they need when they fall ill? If Obama can successfully tar Republicans with that brush, the bill will pass, and we'll be paying the political price in 2010 and 2012. We need effective counter-arguments, and we need them now.

It's been suggested here and elsewhere in the right-wing blogosphere and media that portraying whatever the President's final proposal is as "health-care rationing" is a good counter-arguement to this plan. The government is going to seize all the healthcare and determine how much and what kinds you get, instead of allowing you and your doctors to make the final decision. This plays into the American mistrust of socialism and love of individual freedom, and on the face of it isn't such a bad argument. But there's a hole in it you can drive a bus through.

In the end, *everything* is rationed, simply because there isn't an infinite supply of anything. It's rationing by price, done through the market, and it's taken for granted - it's just a restatement of the law of supply and demand. If "the government is rationing healthcare" is the best argument we can muster, we're hosed. All it would take is for President Obama to give a speech, and other Democrats to go around on the media circuit, pointing out that healthcare is already rationed by price, and questioning the effectiveness of the market's rationing when millions of Americans can't get affordable healthcare. The "rationing" argument will end up with a bigger hole in it than the Titanic - and the Republicans championing it will look like a pack of dogmatic obstructionists.

There are two much better counterarguments Republicans can offer:

1) Finances. We're already in debt, to the tune of $14 trillion. Just keep asking the President and Congress "How do you plan on paying for this?"

2) Fairness. Universal healthcare would be exactly that. If Republicans point out that any universal healthcare scheme would include heroin addicts, meth heads and others who brought their health problems on themselves through poor individual decisions, independents and moderates would reconsider supporting Obama's plan. Who likes the idea of their tax dollars being spent on the health of junkies?

Fred Barnes' upcoming article in the Weekly Standard endorses a Republican stance as the "party of No," calling on congressional Republicans to put opposition to President Obama's agenda ahead of finding new ideas to rebuild the party around after the curb-stomping it took at the polls in 2008.

This could work on what are essentially regional issues, like the bailout of former rustbelt titans GM and Chrysler. Obstructionism becomes more problematic on national issues such as healthcare reform.

A Congressional Budget Office study shows that the U.S. has 45 million uninsured citizens. As more and more citizens are laid off and lose employer-provided health care, and as more and more business are unable to afford their employee health plans as a result of the economic crunch, this problem will just get worse over time. The CBO study estimates that 9 million more Americans will be without coverage a decade from now.

A blanket rejection of any health-care reform plan, without proposing a viable alternative, is political suicide. Uninsured Americans from Washington state to Florida will see the Democrats proposing some kind of solution, no matter how expensive or unworkable it really is. Rahm Emanuel and the DNC/DCC war machine will easily be able to portray Republicans as standing between them and the continued good health of their families. The attack ads practically write themselves.

This isn't an endorsement of socialized medicine, or an endorsement of Republicans blindly going along with whatever plan Obama et. al. end up proposing. But Republicans need to have a coherent, realistic alternative plan that helps the uninsured, or else they will hand Democrats the 2010 midterms on a silver platter.