Morning Fix: Public option blinders?

Chris Cillizza
WashPost

Republicans' decision to make the public option the focus of their efforts to defeat President Obama's health care plan may look like sound political strategy from afar but it runs the risk of distracting voters from arguments against the proposal based on more GOP-friendly issues like taxes and spending.

"We couldn't be in a better place on health care than fighting it out over the public option," said a Democratic strategist who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of a desire to keep his name out of public strategy discussions.

A slew of recent national polling affirms the idea that picking a fight on the public option may not give Republicans their best chance of success in the debate over health care.

The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed 48 percent favoring a public plan administered by the federal government while 42 percent opposed such a proposal. The latest Washington Post/ABC survey showed even stronger support for the public option -- 57 percent of the sample said they favored having the "government create a new health insurance plan to compete with private health insurance" while 40 percent opposed the idea.

(More here.)