Romney: Obama 'not sleeping real well' on eve of healthcare ruling

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Romney: Obama 'not sleeping real well' on eve of healthcare ruling

By Paul West
June 27, 2012
STERLING, Va. -- On the eve of a Supreme Court healthcare ruling that could recast the presidential contest, Mitt Romney was introduced to a Virginia crowd by a conservative Republican who warned last winter that the GOP would be giving up the healthcare issue if they nominated the former Massachusetts governor.

Virginia Atty. Gen. Ken Cuccinelli, a conservative and one of the first state officials in the nation to sue the federal government over the Affordable Care Act, welcomed Romney to the stage and called him the next president of the United States.

But three months ago, Cuccinelli, who had not yet endorsed a candidate, said Republican primary voters were basically deciding whether to give up the healthcare issue when they were choosing between Romney and his main conservative challenger at the time, Rick Santorum.


“I mean, for Romney to get out and say ‘I'd repeal it,’ that's fine, and I believe him. But it doesn't have the power politically to motivate people to vote or volunteer that someone who has been a permanent opponent does. I mean, you are effectively giving that issue up if you select Romney as the nominee. We may be doing that. We may end up doing that,” Cuccinelli, a 2013 gubernatorial candidate, said on C-SPAN.

As governor of Massachusetts, Romney signed into law a requirement that individuals buy health insurance, a government mandate that became a model for Obama’s federal plan and the focal point of the legal case being decided by the court. Romney says that states, rather than the federal government, should be making those decisions.

The GOP presidential candidate, in remarks to more than 500 supporters in the warehouse of a northern Virginia high-tech manufacturer, joked that Obama was sweating out the court decision, to be handed down Thursday morning.

“My guess is they’re not sleeping real well at the White House tonight. That’s the way it ought to be, all right?” said Romney, who received an enthusiastic reception.

Romney repeated his determination, if elected, to replace the federal healthcare law, whether the court upholds it or not. He has not said what he would put in its place.

“I’m asked from time to time, why don’t you like 'Obamacare'? What is it that’s wrong with it? Well, let me count the ways, and there are a lot. I mean first, I don’t like the idea of government bureaucrats getting between us and our doctors, that’s No. 1,” Romney said, never mentioning the government mandate that is at the crux of conservative opposition to the law.

The rally was Romney’s first of the general election campaign in the outer suburbs of Washington, giving him a head start on Obama in this pivotal region, where independent voters have swung upscale Loudoun County back and forth between the two major parties in recent elections.

In 2008, Obama took Loudoun by a wider margin than he did the rest of the state — becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry Virginia since 1964. But Republicans took it back in the 2009 governor’s race, as GOP candidate Bob McDonnell swept exurban northern Virginia on his way to a statewide victory.

Portions of Loudoun were hit harder economically than any other part of northern Virginia, which was somewhat insulated from the worst effects of the recession by federal spending in the Washington area. Overbuilding during the boom that made this the fastest-growing county in the United States at one point has slowed the recovery in some portions of Loudoun.

Some Virginia Democrats complain privately that Obama has been negligent in failing to campaign in the outer reaches of northern Virginia. Instead, he’s concentrated on the closer-in, more heavily Democratic suburbs that require a much shorter trip from the White House.

The president has used the inner suburbs for a variety of political ends. He staged photo opportunities, making separate lunchtime trips to a burger joint just across the Potomac River from downtown Washington with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Vice President Joe Biden, and delivered a budget speech at a northern Virginia community college and other official events.

Romney’s evening stop Wednesday in Virginia, after spending the previous 24 hours raising money in the New York area, was his second public event in as many days in a state considered a must-win for him. He stumped in largely rural southwestern Virginia on Tuesday, and also held a fundraising event there.

Recent polling in Virginia has shown Obama with a lead over Romney of 4 or 5 percentage points — smaller than the president’s margin of victory in the state over 2008 GOP nominee John McCain.

Most analysts expect the state to stay highly competitive through the November election.