BuzzFeed notes that both presidential campaigns, “like the media, also have good reason to move on, as a slow summer week interrupted by the July 4 holiday approaches.”
“For Obama, the health care measure’s abiding unpopularity means that he is, at best, mounting a spirited defense. Romney, meanwhile, has centered his campaign on the clear case that the American economy is broken and he can fix it. He has avoided policy specifics, promising to ‘replace’ the current health care legislation without advancing a specific plan. A campaign centered on health care policy — which might have come from a different Supreme Court verdict — would have pulled him into the weeds of an issue on which his own support for near-universal, government-backed health care in Massachusetts makes him a flawed messenger.”
Politico: “Over the next six weeks or so, health care will be an unpredictable race within a race: The Obama campaign will seek to downplay the more divisive details of the law and tout the court’s approval of his signature legislative accomplishment as proof of his effectiveness — courtesy of an unlikely bipartisan partnership with a powerful conservative, Chief Justice John Roberts.”
“For Mitt Romney, who had every reason to expect the conservative high court to strike down at least a big part of the law, the decision requires a bit of recalibration. He had hoped to portray a full or partial repeal as evidence Obama squandered the trust of the American electorate by wasting two years that could have been used to create more jobs.”
Washington Post: “If conservatives needed any more motivation to unseat President Obama, they got it Thursday from the Supreme Court, which provided fresh political opportunities for Mitt Romney even as it handed the president a legal victory… Romney’s history, however, may make it difficult for him to capitalize on that argument.”
