Where Was Alexi Giannoulias In Opposing the ObamaCare "Mistake" When it Mattered?

Now that there's just 16 days until Election Day 2010, Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias has suddenly discovered what most of the rest of the country already knew - the issue is jobs, jobs, jobs, folks, and his basketball buddy, President Obama, has done a miserable job in focusing on jobs, instead spending his time, effort and political capital to transform our country to a European-model, high tax, big government society, starting with Obama's massive revamping of our health care system. From today's AP story:

Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias says President Barack Obama made a mistake by focusing heavily on health care reform.

During an Associated Press interview Monday, Giannoulias said there should have been a "laser like" focus in Washington on creating jobs.

Giannoulias, who's running for Obama's old U.S. Senate seat, said putting people back to work should have been the focus of the administration to the exclusion of almost everything else domestically.

Is this a sign of desperation for Team Alexi? After all, that seriously has to be the first time that Alexi has publicly uttered the words "Obama" and "mistake" in the same sentence. For some months, Alexi has been one of the few Democrats running to, rather than away, from Obama and his failed policies. Now, today, Alexi suddenly discovered that jobs, not a progressive agenda to reform healthcare and redistribute the nation's wealth, is what is keeping real people (as opposed to Alexi's favored company of fellow limousine liberals like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi) up at night.

This revelation is a bit late in coming to young Alexi, methinks. For months now, Alexi has been touting his full support of Obama and his healthcare plan, and excoriating anyone who opposed it, focusing, of course, on his Republican opponent, Congressman Mark Kirk. And Alexi has made accusing Kirk of being a 'shift-in-the-wind' politician a cornerstone of his campaign.... Sheesh.

You may recall several campaign videos that Alexi produced trying to smear Kirk as the obstructionist who wanted to thwart Obama's grand vision for healthcare reform. At the time, Alexi was all-in:



Not a word about how this was all a mistake, and Obama should have been focusing on jobs and the economy. Not even a mention on how there are, at the very least, problems with ObamaCare that a few days ago, Alexi was suggesting needed to be fixed.

Or maybe you remember this campaign video, "Really, Mark Kirk?"



I now ask Alexi, "Really Alexi?" You expect us to believe that you've seen the light and you take back all the criticisms you've made of Mark Kirk over his opposition to Obamacare? Where were all the videos, where were the press statements, in the months leading up to this point, pleading with President Obama to drop his obsession with taking over health care, and rather urging him to re-focus the awesome power and prestige of the White House into getting the nation back to work?

As recently as October 7th, when Obama was in town to stump for Alexi, did Alexi make any mention of this tiny, weeny "mistake" to the President? Nope, nothing, nada, zilch. Of course, it's probably not something that Alexi had the guts to say to Obama's face, and moreover, would have spolied the chance to get good video footage for campaign commericals.

Perhaps Alexi was a bit stung by his recent failure to point out any federal spending bill in which he would not have supported the plans of Nancy Pelosi and the President, and is now grasping for something, anything, to convince the voters of Illinois that he will not simply be a rubber stamp for the Obama/Pelosi agenda.

If that's what this was all about, that makes two "mistakes," Alexi - your support of Obamacare, and now trying to so transparently distance yourself from it for political gain.