Democratic House candidate Sean Eldridge won’t say whether he’d vote for Obamacare or support Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) to be Speaker of the House.
Eldridge, the husband of New Republic editor and millionaire "poke" button pioneer Chris Hughes, blasted the disastrous Obamacare rollout in an interview with Real Clear Politics published Thursday.
"I’m very frustrated with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act," Eldridge told RCP’s Scott Conroy.
Asked whether he would have voted for the legislation, Eldridge punted. "It’s impossible to speculate on something when I wasn’t there and wasn’t in the room and didn’t have an opportunity to vote on it," he explained.
Obamacare has become a political albatross for congressional Democrats, and Eldridge "has honed an anti-Washington message," Conroy wrote.
Running in a swing district that will be among the nation’s most closely watched in next year’s midterms, Eldridge has vowed to be an independent voice on Capitol Hill. In the interview, he declined to say whether he would support Nancy Pelosi for speaker if Democrats retake control of the House.
Republicans protest that this claim of political independence reeks of insincerity, given that Eldridge is a partially self-funded candidate whose campaign coffers have also been filled by some of the most prominent members of the Hollywood-New York-Washington axis of progressive elites, with whom he and his husband frequently rub shoulders.