Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus says by voting down the mandate element of Obamacare, Ohio residents have signaled what’s in store for President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law. Priebus also told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Tuesday the defeat of a second ballot issue that would have severely limit collective bargaining by Ohio public-employee unions does not portend nationwide sentiment.
Priebus said he is sure Ohio Gov. John Kasich is “disappointed” in the results of the collective-bargaining law ballot referendum, “but you know it is a state issue.”
“You know, I’m from Wisconsin, obviously, a much different outcome. I think the bigger issue nationally, though, out of Ohio is obviously Issue 3, which really puts Obama on the ballot,” Priebus said. “His keystone piece of legislation — Obamacare — goes down in a major way. And I think that’s what’s really personalized nationally and what you can glean from Ohio, if you want to take anything out of that state tonight.”
Van Susteren said she thought the collective-bargaining vote was important as it reflects on the GOP’s nationwide thrust for smaller government and is not as localized an issue as Priebus portrays. Priebus disagreed.
“Well, I guess I beg to differ. I mean, I think that when you talk about collective bargaining — when you talk about those issues that are unique to local units of government and how a state’s, you know, financing works, and how their shared revenue works in a particular state and what that means to local government units, and police, and fire, and teachers, and the rest — I think it is pretty localized,” Priebus said. “That’s my opinion — I don’t think there's a national collective-bargaining issue on the ballot that's going to play in 2012.
“But I do think the issues of spending, Obamacare — the president,” he said. “You know what else I take out of this election? Is that all these — whether Democrats have victories or Republicans have victories tonight — there’s one common denominator in all of this: And that is that Democrats — whether the governor in Kentucky or state senators in Virginia who are Democratic — they, number one, didn’t want to be seen with this president.
“They ran against this president actively through their advertising — they came up with the flu and travel conflicts when the president rolled into town,” Priebus continued. “And I just happen to think that that’s really the issue that comes out of tonight — which is this sort of stand-offish approach that Democrats are having towards this president — I think it’s pretty obvious.”
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