White House leaning on party stalwart, core supporters to sell health law

The White House is using former President Bill Clinton and a Democratic governor from a Republican state to sell the health law to a still-skeptical public. In the meantime, volunteers for Obama's Organizing for Action are urged to focus their efforts on enrolling the public in Obamacare.

The New York Times: Ex-President Ventures Where Some Might Not
The peril posed by what conservatives call Obamacare underscores the limitations of just what Mr. Clinton, popular as he may now be, can do for Democratic candidates running in conservative-leaning states this year. Kentucky, for example, is a national model for the law; 244,000 residents of the state now have health care because of the Affordable Care Act. Just in the last month, [Kentucky Gov. Steve] Beshear was a guest in the first lady's box at Mr. Obama's State of the Union address and at a White House state dinner, both invitations widely seen as a way of thanking the governor. Yet despite what Democrats see as the success of the law here, it is Republicans who are focused on the topic (Martin, 2/26).

The Wall Street Journal: Obama Trims To-Do List For Core Supporters
President Barack Obama offered an abbreviated to-do list Tuesday as he asked Organizing for Action volunteers to help him raise the minimum wage and ensure that more people sign up for health coverage through the Affordable Care Act (Nelson, 2/25).

Politico: Obama: OFA Volunteers Doing 'God's Work'
The president urged OFA members to recruit Republican friends and relatives to enroll in Obamacare -- telling them to tell people not to believe what they might hear on "the wrong newscast." He cited "a combination of an implacable opposition that has spent hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars, to spread misinformation" and the faulty healthcare.gov as the reason "a lot of people who really could use this coverage are unsure. We've got to make sure that they know that this will pay off for them" (Epstein, 2/25).