Fail? It might just be a win for Scott Brown in New Hampshire:
Blogger Jason Pye seems to have been the first to pick up on a Shaheen appearance last Friday “Good Morning With Dan Mitchell,” a radio talk show that airs on WKBR in Keene. His post includes audio of Shaheen’s exchange with an unidentified caller, which Pye says he obtained from America Rising, a conservative opposition-research group:
The caller told Shaheen that “President Obama’s health care is not affordable.”
“It’s cost me more, my deductible has more than tripled and my monthly premium has doubled, so it’s not affordable,” he said. “And so, I’d rather have my old healthcare, my old system back.”Shaheen dismissed his concerns out of hand, telling him to leave his name with the host so her office could call him back “because that doesn’t sound right to me.” She chalked the caller’s complaints up to “misinformation.”
“It sounds, and there’s a lot of misinformation about what’s happening with the health care law,” Shaheen told the caller, “so we’ll get back in touch with you, we’ll find out what’s going on with your plan, and we’ll help you sort that out because you shouldn’t be paying that much more.”
Now perhaps this was a Republican prank call, or maybe the guy actually is misinformed. Offering to help sort the matter out is obviously the wise political response, noncommittal in substance while demonstrating (or at least asserting) a commitment to constituent service.
Before this story, I had Brown turning New Hampshire red in my Longshot column. But in American politics, there might not be any faster way for an incumbent to lose than to blame their constituents for the lousy result of a law the incumbent voted in favor of.
And this is the kind of story that can get around especially quickly in a small state like New Hampshire.
Spread the word.
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