Free Republic

Democrats and Republicans are amassing enormous war chests for a midterm battle that will decide who controls the Senate for the remainder of President Obama’s term. Republicans need a net gain of six seats to reclaim the Senate majority, and are gunning for Democratic incumbents in conservative-leaning states like Arkansas, Alaska, North Carolina, West Virginia and Louisiana. Democrats are mostly playing defense, but see a few opportunities to peel away seats from the GOP column. Here are the five Senate races to watch in 2014. KENTUCKY The reelection bid of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is the marquee race...

When the Obama administration declared Healthcare.gov "fixed" earlier this month, the announcement spawned a flurry of media reports about Congressional Democrats' fears being allayed by the news. As an aside, the website's technical troubles are hardly a thing of the past, for reasons we'll discuss below -- but the front end experience has been substantially improved. Ron Fournier wondered just how long jittery Democrats would be appeased. The detente appears to have lasted less than one week: Senate Democrats facing tough reelections say President Obama has not done enough to fix the botched rollout of his healthcare law and are...

Later this week, Southern Media & Opinion Research is expected to release the first independent poll assessing the matchup between Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and Republican opponents in next year’s Senate race in Louisiana. For Landrieu, the poll will illuminate whether her Obamacare strategy is working, or whether the health care law is going to define her race and hurt her prospects. While the poll will be conducted by the independent organization, GOP businessman Lane Grigsby is funding the survey, according to sources in the Landrieu campaign. “Up until now the issue was manageable for her,” said Louisiana political analyst...

As Democrats on Capitol Hill are growing increasingly angry with the White House over problems with Obamacare — and increasingly uneasy about their individual fortunes heading into 2014 — Colorado Sen. Mark Udall Wednesday became the latest Democratic lawmaker to introduce legislation to change the beleaguered Affordable Care Act... With support building for a plan introduced by Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana, that would allow people mislead by the president”s promise to keep their plans to actually do so indefinitely, Udall has come up with a scaled down version that would allow policyholders to keep their current plans, being cancelled under...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday will convene a special meeting of the Senate Democratic caucus and senior White Officials to discuss the troubled rollout of ObamaCare. Reid on Wednesday told reporters he would not answer questions about the hundreds of thousands of insurance policy cancellations or other issues until he has further discussions with the White House. The Senate leader said President Obama called him Tuesday evening to discuss healthcare and other issues. Several Democrats have signed onto a proposal sponsored by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) that would force insurance companies to let people keep their health...

November 13, 2013, 02:39 pm House Dems about to 'go crazy' By Mike Lillis and Justin Sink House Democrats on Wednesday expressed increasing frustration at the Obama administration’s inability to improve the rollout of ObamaCare. Democrats said they’re worried about "being dragged into this non-stop cycle" of bad news about the ObamaCare rollout, rather than celebrating the successes of the law they helped to pass, a Democratic aide said. "They're voicing those frustrations with the administration," the aide said following a Democratic Caucus meeting where administration officials got an earful from exasperated lawmakers. ADVERTISEMENT With the House vote just two...

It’s not just red-state Democrats who are panicking. Then again, Merkley’s not a typical blue-state Democrat. He won his Senate race in Oregon by fewer than four points in 2008, a year in which Hopenchange fever boosted Dems nationally. Not only won’t he have that working for him next year, he’ll have the albatross of Obama’s biggest “achievement” hanging around his neck. Time for him to do what little he can to shed it by joining Landrieu’s bill.Last night a source told Greg Sargent that House Democrats were being whipped by the leadership to oppose Fred Upton’s bill, replete with...

Republicans are walking into a trap and they don’t even realize it. They are about to consider, in the House of Representatives, legislation by Congressman Upton that would allow people to keep their insurance plans. There’s a problem though. It is widely acknowledged that Congressman Upton’s legislation is more messaging than substance. His legislation does not have anything in it that can force insurance companies, in the topsy-turvy world of Obamacare, to keep insurance plans going. But there is a plan than does. Senator Mary Landrieu has written legislation in the United States Senate that the Democrats love. It mandates...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Tuesday joined the ranks of worried Democrats demanding that President Obama allow people to keep their current insurance policies. Feinstein’s move is bad news for an administration desperate for good news following the roll-out debacle of the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchange on Oct. 1, which has been plagued by technical problems. In addition to the website snarl, thousands of individual policies have been cancelled by insurance companies to meet minimum coverage standards under Obama’s signature health care law. Feinstein said a “simple fix” would make good on Obama’s promise during the debate over the...

Bill Clinton's comments may have been the tipping point. Yesterday, the former president told an interviewer that the White House should keep its promise and honor its commitment on Obama's infamous "keep your plan" pledge. And if there's one person on planet earth whose reputation for honoring both the truth and personal commitments is -- ahem -- unimpeachable, it's him. Snark aside, Clinton's remarks were hugely impactful; not because he was expressing his own personal opinion, but because in doing so, he was extending a tacit permission slip to fellow Democrats. Message: It's okay to abandon Obama by starting to...

It’s not just red-state Democrats who want to take aggressive steps to mend controversial provisions in Obamacare. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that she will co-sponsor a bill by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) to require insurance companies to continue offering their existing health care plans — a way to make good on President Barack Obama’s promise that consumers can keep their current coverage if they like it.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said Tuesday that she would continue to put pressure on the administration to speed up its review of the Keystone XL pipeline. "I intend to see if we can push forward the approval of the Keystone pipeline," Landrieu told reporters after a meeting the senator held with Premier Alison Redford of Alberta, Canada, to discuss a way forward on the pipeline, which, if built, would bring crude from Alberta's oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries. "The ball is in our court and I hope the United States will make a decision," Landrieu said. "So I'm going...

Amazing stuff via Mediaite. The “Keep Your Plan Act” is Fred Upton’s bill, which Jay Carney spent a few minutes attacking at today’s press briefing because it would make canceled plans available to all consumers, not just the ones who’d been enrolled in those plans before. That would be a disaster for the insurance industry. Healthy people would flee the new, more expensive plans for the resurrected cheaper ones, leaving no one in the new risk pool except sick people with very expensive treatments. That means either heavy losses for insurers, steep premium hikes next year to make up the...

House Republicans are pouncing on President Obama’s apology for cancelled insurance plans to push him into backing legislation that would change ObamaCare. The president on Thursday said he was “sorry” that Americans were losing their healthcare plans despite his frequent assurances that individuals with insurance could keep them. Obama said he was seeking an administrative fix, but Republicans say they have a ready-made solution in the Keep Your Plan bill that they plan to bring up for a vote next week. A spokesman for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the president can’t address the problems plaguing the healthcare law through...

Louisiana Senate Democrat Mary Landrieu is doubling down on her support for Obamacare. She says, if a vote for Obamacare were held tomorrow, she'd again vote to support the bill. "No more free riders. Everybody has to share responsibility so we can keep a healthy work force and keep it strong. And I can give you more information about it. If I had to vote for the bill again, I'd vote for it tomorrow. There are a lot of good things about this bill," said Landrieu. Landrieu is up for reelection in 2014.

Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander (R) Montana Senator Max Baucus (D) Alaska Senator Mark Begich (D) Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss (R) Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran (R) Maine Senator Susan Collins (R) Texas Senator John Cornyn (R) Massachusetts Senator William "Mo" Cowan (D) Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (D) Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi (R) Minnesota Senator Al Franken (DFL) South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham (R) North Carolina Senator Kay Hagan (D) Iowa Senator Tom Harkin (D) Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe (R) Nebraska Senator Mike Johanns (R) South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson (D) Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (D) Michigan Senator Carl Levin (D) Kentucky...

Senator Mary Landrieu says she will be introducing legislation to make sure anyone who likes their health care plan can keep it if the wish under Obamacare, but she still supports the law. **SNIP** Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon said about 80,000 Louisiana policyholders will lose their policies because of Obamacare. Landrieu’s legislation would allow policyholders to keep their insurance as long as they kept paying their premiums.

When President Barack Obama appears at the Port of New Orleans tomorrow, he won't be joined by Louisiana's only statewide elected Democrat, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu. Landrieu will travel with Obama to New Orleans on the president's plane, Air Force One, but she doesn't plan to attend his speech about boosting exports. The U.S. Senator has a long-standing engagement in Lake Charles that takes place at the same time and she can't be in both places at once, staff said. Her absence at Obama's public appearance in Louisiana this year could raise some questions. Landrieu is expected to face a...

Senate Democrats vented their frustrations over the faulty rollout of the Affordable Care Act in a meeting Thursday with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and other senior officials. “There’s a lot of frustration, everywhere,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said after the meeting. McDonough tried to assure angry senators he is personally taking charge of the disparate federal offices in charge of implementing the massive law, which has been plagued by technical errors. “He gave us the impression that he’s taking charge of the different elements and cracking the whip. He said to let him know if we had...

The firestorm over President Obama's "you can keep your plan" lie now threatens to singe vulnerable Democrats next year, so they're springing into action to try to force the administration to keep its word. Louisiana's Mary Landrieu -- an ardent Obamacare supporter -- is scrambling to undo one of the obvious consequences of a law she's voted to pass, fund, and retain: Sen. Mary Landrieu said Wednesday she would propose legislation to ensure all Americans could keep their existing insurance coverage under Obamacare, a fresh sign of the political problems the law’s rollout has created for congressional Democrats. Landrieu, a...