ANALYSIS/OPINION:

On Friday came this sad but true headline from The Hill: “GOP in retreat on ObamaCare.”

And it opened to say, “Republicans are retreating from calls to repeal ObamaCare ahead of this year’s midterm elections.”

Another promise, another skate.

Republicans, once the party of principle — of law and Constitution and limited governance and conservatism of Founding Father ideals — have simply morphed into red-tied Democrats.

The fight to repeal Obamacare, if you recall, has been a signature campaign of tea party type conservatives and limited government folk for years. It’s why the House was won; it’s why the Senate’s still Republican; it’s in large part why President Donald Trump can call himself president.

And Democrats are now cleverly using the GOP’s failure to produce on this issue for their own party’s political gain — causing Republicans to bolt even farther from one of their core campaign promises to voters.

Republicans lost their will and then their chance to repeal.

And now even the party’s own strategists are shrugging their shoulders, saying it’s a loser of a platform.

“I don’t think it’s seen as a winning issue,” said GOP strategist Ford O’Connell in The Hill, speaking of Obamacare repeal. “It’s also an issue that tends to fire up the Democratic base more so than the Republican base.”

Yes, and you know why?

Because Republicans dropped the ball, time after time, even while holding all the House-Senate-White House cards. And voters are sick and tired of setting their hopes on repeal, only to see them crash and burn.

The reason Republican voters don’t seem as excited about Obamacare repeal any more is not that they don’t want the repeal. It’s that their Republican lawmakers, elected in large part to repeal Obamacare, have told them by actions and by vote that sorry, it just ain’t gonna happen. Republican voters have accepted they’ve been deceived.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter, @ckchumley.

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