No, it's not bad for the GOP campaign if the Supremes toss ObamaCare

The mistake here is one the Supreme Court didn’t make: Confusing politics with the real issues—the Constitution, and liberty. Or, as put by David Rivkin, the attorney who started the 26-state lawsuit against ObamaCare: “These concerns are bogus. We have already won in the sense that the entire court’s attention was on the Constitution’s structural limitation on governmental power. That’s the ultimate indictment—not just of ObamaCare, but of everything this administration has done.”

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Through that lens, the GOP has no obvious political problem. Republicans can argue that any fallout from partial or full repeal of the law—higher prices, the loss of some provisions—is the fault of a Democratic administration that strapped the market to a shoddily considered, partisan bill that failed judicial muster. And the risk of the same is the GOP argument for why it won’t be proposing its own 2,700-page alternative.

As to enthusiasm come November, what better argument can the GOP be handed than proof, via a Supreme Court repeal, that Mr. Obama cannot be trusted with a second term? If the president was willing to impose such a constitutionally suspect bill prior to re-election, what will he do if he never has to face voters again? And what better reminder of the centrality of the court, which Mr. Obama could well alter in a second term?

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For these arguments to matter, they must, of course, be made. If a Nominee Romney, for instance, took a repeal of ObamaCare as license to quit talking about a tricky issue, he’d be throwing the game. Whatever the Eeyores say, ObamaCare—upheld or repealed—remains Republicans’ most potent issue this fall.

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