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WALZ’S BOTCHED HEALTHCARE ROLLOUT

By Luke Hellier | November 7, 2009

POST CORRECTION

Tim Walz wasn’t the only Democrat to botch a major announcement this week. As if channeling his inner RT Rybak, Walz fumbeld the ball when announcing that he would be suppoing the Democrat’s $1 trillion goverment-run healthcare bill.

Walz was set to hold a conference call annoucing his decision on the bill on Friday afternoon. To follow up on the announcement, Walz has submitted an op-ed to the PB to run in it’s Friday afternoon edition. It’s important to note here that the Rochester Post-Bulletin is one of the few remaining “evening edition” newspapers. The paper posted the op-ed in the late morning, about the time the PB goes to press, hours before Walz had his conference call.

At the end of the day this isn’t a major issue, but Walz’s botched rollout gave Republicans ample time to pile on Walz in the 4 hours between the posting of his op-ed and his press conference, linking Walz’s support for a bill opposed by small businesses to the nation’s rising unemployment:

Republicans were quick to criticize Walz for supporting a bill that they say will hurt small businesses with its employer mandates at a time when unemployment is at record levels.

“By supporting the trillion dollar government takeover of health care, Tim Walz has proved to the people of southern Minnesota that he’s not the ‘independent leader’ he claims to be, but really just another partisan Democrat dedicated to advancing an agenda that isn’t getting our economy back on track,” said Tom Erickson, spokesman with the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Source: Rochester Post-Bulletin

CQ rates this race as “Likely Republican,” putting Walz on the “most vulnerable” list despite the fact that he doesn’t even have an opponent. “Likely Democrat” despite the fact he doesn’t have an opponent, but is not considered a ’safe’ seat by CQ’s standards.  Examples of ‘Safe Seats’ would be Colin Peterson MN-7 and Jim Oberstar MN-8.  Walz will have to do better if he wants to return to Congress next year.

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