Conservative group hits Republican for breaking PPACA repeal pledge

Poliquin’s problem is that he won office after telling Republican groups that he, too, would rip out Obamacare by the metaphorical roots. He told the Campaign for Liberty, founded in 2008 by former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, that he would “support and cast every vote for legislation that will repeal or defund Obamacare.” And he didn’t.

“Rep. Poliquin clearly does not take the promises he made to his constituents seriously if it took him less than one month to violate his own pledge by voting against repealing Obamacare,” wrote Campaign for Liberty spokeswoman Megan Stiles in an e-mail. “Campaign for Liberty will be sure to let his constituents know how little he values his own word, much less the opinions of the voters who elected him.”

Katko, who won a landslide over Democrat Dan Maffei (who subsequently retired from electoral politics), had an easier time of it. “If and when a replacement is ready, my vote will be to repeal Obamacare,” he told reporter Mark Weiner.

During the campaign, he’d finessed this: He wanted to “fix the disaster of Obamacare,” as he put it in a video, but admitted that the law had “very good wellness aspects.” Dold had towed the same line, promising not to completely repeal PPACA, after casting several votes to do just that in his initial 2011-2012 term.