The Trumpcare advantage

Conservatives were jubilant just a month ago at the Conservative Political Action Conference, hailing President Trump as a conquering hero who would advance the cause of conservatism and potentially even redefine it. Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, declared that CPAC could practically be renamed "TPAC," dropping the "conservative" and switching it out for "Trump."

But a month later, many who have built their careers on conservative "purity" are on a collision course with a president who is beloved in their districts and who proved in his primary victory that the Republican Party's center of gravity may not be about doctrinaire conservatism after all. And the survival of the new healthcare reform bill in the short run may depend quite a bit on whether or not it becomes known as "Trumpcare."

Last week, House leaders rolled out long-promised legislation to "repeal and replace" Obamacare, the American Health Care Act, which focuses mostly on changing the taxation and spending portions of 2010's Affordable Care Act. In a great boost for House leaders, Trump put his support behind it, and the Sunday morning airwaves were full of executive branch leaders touting the legislation.

House Republicans have not had an assist from the executive in quite some time. In fact, seven out of ten House Republicans have never served with a Republican president before. The idea that one can pass a bill and have a plausible chance of it being signed into law is a whole new world for Republicans on the Hill. Furthermore, roughly two-thirds of them weren't in Congress when the Affordable Care Act was signed into law in the first place. (In contrast, about half of the Democratic caucus has been around since pre-Obama, and one in ten were elected before Bill Clinton was president.)

Being in the opposition makes messaging simple. Stopping bad things from happening, standing up to leadership, these are all easy sells in this climate. Arguing in favor of something? Much, much harder, as Republicans are learning.