PrintAugust 6, 2010
Victory at C
The triumph of Prop C in Missouri could not be more complete, and the Democrats and their minions in the mainstream media are fully aware of the fact. Proposition C was the Missouri constitutional amendment that, well, read for yourself:
Shall the Missouri Statutes be amended to:* Deny the government authority to penalize citizens for refusing to purchase private health insurance or infringe upon the right to offer or accept direct payment for lawful healthcare services?* Modify laws regarding the liquidation of certain domestic insurance companies?It is estimated this proposal will have no immediate costs or savings to state or local governmental entities. However, because of the uncertain interaction of the proposal with implementation of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, future costs to state governmental entities are unknown.
C did not repeal the entire law, but nullified the onerous "mandate" whereby the central government forces citizens to purchase health insurance or face fines and/or jail time.
Prop C passed with a whopping 71% of the vote.
This is common knowledge to engaged parties, but what the liberal media and the Democrats will try to do is spin the meaning of this vote, try to make this look unrepresentative of the public in general. They will claim that Prop C passed strictly along a partisan vote, that turnout for a sultry summer was minimal, designed to favor the GOP, and that we cannot assume that the titanic percentage really means a public antipathy toward ObamaCare. They will, in short, be telling lies.
First, let us look at money; the Missouri Hospital Association alone spent over $300,000 to combat Prop C, while the leading advocate for the proposition had a mere $100,000. So, we are looking at a three-to-one lead in funds for the opponents of this amendment. Yet the amendment passed with staggering numbers anyway.
But what is even more impressive are the numbers of votes throughout the state. Prop C won every handily in every county in the state save the City of St. Louis (as opposed to the separate St. Louis County) and Kansas City (which is tabulated separate from Jackson County in which it resides). This is astonishing, given Missouri is generally a battleground state, and Missouri has a Democrat governor and one Democrat senator. There are numerous Democratic strongholds in Missouri; St. Louis County, Ralls County, Boone County (home of Mizzou), the lead belt counties of Iron, Reynolds, etc. and all of them went for Prop C. except St. Louis City and Kansas City proper.
From Michael Tanner at The Corner (courtesy of Ace of Spades) :
"According to preliminary results, just under 668,000 Missourians voted in favor of Proposition C. Only 578,000 Republicans voted in their party's primaries. Another 40,000 voters appear to have cast votes on Proposition C without voting in either the Republican or Democratic primaries. So, even if you assume that every single Republican voted for the initiative and every person who didn't vote in a primary voted for it, at least 40,000 Democrats - more than one in every eight Democratic primary voters - voted against the centerpiece of President Obama's health-care plan. And these aren't just any registered Democrats; these are the party activists, the Democratic base."
And even the urban citadels of Satan wound up being weak, with STL at 59-41% opposition and KC at 57-43%. Granted, voter turnout was just 13% in the City of St. Louis, but what does that tell us? St. Louis stands to benefit most from the Obama plan, yet the opponent of Prop C could not muster anyone to come out to kill the Amendment. There is no enthusiasm for the Health Nazification Act, and even the bluest of blue electorates could not be bothered to take fifteen minutes out of their day to support it. Oh, and 15% of ballots cast for Democrat Robin Carnahan in the election supported Prop C.
And that is not to mention St. Louis County, a traditional Democratic stronghold. In 2008 the county went 59.5% Democratic (333,123 votes) and 39.6% Republican (221,705). This is not a coincidence; in 2004 those numbers were 54.4% to 45.1% and in 2000 51.5% to 46.2% for Al Gore. St. Louis County has been trending Democrat for the last decade as blue-collar citizens have hemorrhaged from the City proper into the near suburbs. Yet those suburban Democrats could not see fit to stop the passage of C in St. Louis County. The initiative passed: YES 95,217 61.5% NO 59,598 38.5%. Again, the opponents could not be bothered to fight C.
Here is a map put out by Robin Carnahan, Secretary of State for Missouri, showing just how catastrophic this vote really was to the proponents of forced health insurance.
During the run-up to the Civil War, Missouri became the critical state; Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware watched intently to see if Missouri would secede or remain in the Union. The importance of Missouri's decision was not lost on Abraham Lincoln, who dispatched his point man Nathanial Fox with one mandate "Missouri must stay in the Union at all costs." Missouri stayed in the Union, and so did the other border states. Had Missouri seceded, the capital would have had to be moved from Washington, the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio rivers would have been secured for the Confederacy, and they would have secured an industrial base to make weapons and equipment. California would have been cut off. Kansas would have been cut off. The entire complexion of the war would have changed.
Missouri has just seceded from the tyranny of forced health insurance. Perhaps the entire complexion of this war of ideas has changed? It certainly has created a new playing field.
