Progressive Baptists and N.C. Senate Race

[Stephen Fox]

Gonna http://www.ethicsdaily.com/do-you-place ... -cms-21736

[Stephen Fox]

http://foxofbama.blogspot.com/2014/05/l ... olina.html

just o thec

[Sandy]

Tillis isn't the tea party candidate in NC. That was Brannan. I heard a scathing rebuke of North Carolina Republicans on one of the radio deejay talk shows, accusing them of abandoning conservative values in their nomination of Tillis, and vowing to encourage true conservatives to stay home in November. The Democrats are somewhat disappointed that Brannan didn't do better, not that they would have preferred him, but that his nutcase ideas couldn't have beaten Kay Hagan on his best day. Tillis can't win without turnout from conservatives, so it remains to be seen if they'll follow their mindless radio disc jockey into defeat.

One of the problems that the GOP seems to be having in NC is opposition to the ACA. Apparently, more North Carolinians benefit from it than they realized, and the ads they've run have actually bumped Hagan's poll numbers.

[Haruo]

Yes, we have a number of conservative Christian friends and neighbors who are very happy with the outcome of the ACA in their individual cases, and my guess is that the anecdotal value of this sort of thing is greatly weakening that point as an advertising lever for conservative Republicans, Tea Party or otherwise. Far more cases of this kind than folks who have really been forced to give up the coverage they had and loved by the new law (particularly since most of the latter is due to insurance company decisions, not ACA requirements).

[Mrs Haruo]

I have a friend who has been teaching off and on in Christian schools and subbing in the public schools and has not been able to afford medical insurance because of a pre-existing medical condition and spotty work history. She has been crippled for many years because of painful side effects of surgery gone wrong. This last week she was able to be seen by a physical therapist and now has hope of living a relatively normal life. Thank you "Obamacare"!!!

[Sandy]

It's ironic (and something I love to discuss with my Christian school colleagues) that a number of Christian and Catholic schools in Pennsylvania are saving all kinds of budget money by allowing their employees to go to the exchange and buy their insurance, then reimbursing them for the premiums. I'm not sure how they work that out tax wise, but apparently, the salaries are such that most teachers can get a subsidized policy from the exchange that provides much better coverage than their full priced policy does. I'm sure that the nature of politics being what it is, there are still some of them that will foot-shoot when it comes to casting a ballot, but surely they've at least got to think about it.

If the ACA is so unpopular, it is sure not evident in the advertising that candidates are doing here in PA. The Democrat running for Congress in my district has ads paid for by his committee in which he trumpets the themes of taxing the gas companies for education dollars, increasing the state budget, getting Pennsylvania into the medicare supplement, and the backdrop is photos of him shaking hands with Hillary Clinton and the President. All of the gubernatorial candidates are lining themselves up with Obama, Clinton and even Gore. If the ACA is a bad deal, it's not on the radar screen here.

We're not quite to summer yet. Unemployment has fallen to 6.3%, which makes the recovery under Obama second only to Roosevelt in terms of percentages of workers. The stock market has soared to well above twice what it was at the peak of the Bush recession. By the end of the summer, more than 10 million people will have been able to acquire insurance that didn't have it before. And with things turning in that direction, it's difficult to see what the Republicans are going to run on. Taking all of that away with budget cuts? Their old, tired, unproven theories about government spending?