NEWS BLOG (WSAU) Is the health care ruling good for Barack Obama’s reelection prospects, or it is good for Mitt Romney? It’s been argued both ways.

My take: it all depends on how long anger can be sustained. Conventional wisdom is that the sun comes up the next day, life continues as more-or-less normal, higher taxes and insurance exchanges don’t factor into the debate until well after the election. Advantage: Obama.

There is one thing that gives me pause. It’s the tea party crowd that will be the fiercest opposition to Obamacare and the group that’s most likely to rally around repeal candidates. I’ve been wrong about the tea party before – about how long they’d sustain themselves as a political movement. They dominated the stage for nearly two years, from Barack Obama’s election to the mid-term elections of 2010. It’s more typical for a political movement to arc like the Occupy Wall Street crowd, where they fade after five or six months.

We’re four months away from picking a President. The tea party just might be able to seize the spotlight, keep the issue ‘hot’, and rally around a slate of candidates.

I still believe the most-likely scenario is that health care reform is here to stay and that repeal is difficult and unlikely. There is no possibility of the GOP getting a 60-seat super-majority in the U.S. Senate to move a bill. But my electoral college map is hazy today. Will the tea party emerge from the fog and confusion? Nothing is clear until that question is answered.

Chris Conley
6/29/12