How Jon Stewart became President Obama’s biggest problem

How Jon Stewart became President Obama’s biggest problem

·      
By Chris
Cillizza 

·      
October 22 at 12:15 pm 

President Obama’s biggest problem when it comes to selling the American
public on the so-far rocky rollout of his health-care law isn’t John Boehner or
Mitch McConnell or even Ted Cruz. It’s Jon Stewart.

HANDOUT IMAGE: Jon Stewart. Indecision 2006 — “Battlefield Ohio: ‘The Daily
Show’s’ Midwest Midterm Midtacular”
Stewart, the host of the wildly popular “Daily Show” on Comedy Central, has
emerged as a harsh critic of HealthCare.gov and the Obama administration’s
inability to fix it.
Stewart dedicated the entire first 10 minutes of his show — three full
segments — on Monday to slashing hits on the Web site and the president’s
handling of the problems.  He compared Obama to “Gil,” the
hapless salesman from “The Simpsons,” showed “Daily Show”
correspondent John Oliver stuck in a computer after trying to sign up
for Obamacare and expressed amazement that even the calculator on
the HealthCare.gov Web site doesn’t work. (And, remember,
Stewart was heavily critical of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen
Sebelius during an appearance on his show earlier this month.)
Here’s a clip from Monday that captures Stewart’s critique (it may not be
safe to play at work for some of you):
Who cares what a late night comedian/talk show host thinks? President Obama
should if viewership details on Stewart’s show are right.
According to a 2012 Pew Research Center poll, “The Daily
Show” has the second-largest share of young viewers — aged 18-29 — of any of
the 24 media outlets tested. (The only one with a higher number of young
viewers was the “Colbert Report.”)

Image courtesy of Pew Research Center
President Obama and his administration have made it quite clear that one of
the big beneficiaries of the law should be young people. “Already, millions of
young adults have been able to stay on their parents’ plans until they turn
26,” Obama trumpeted in a speech defending the Affordable Care Act on Oct. 1.
On Monday, in an address designed to calm worries about the problems with the
HealthCare.gov Web site, Obama specifically referenced three young people standing
behind him who had been able to stay on their parents’ insurance until they
were 26 and added: “Millions of other young people are currently
benefiting from that part of the law.”
But, these same young people tend to get much of their news — and therefore
have their opinions shaped — not by places like The Washington Post or the CBS
Evening News but rather by Stewart. He is their Tom Brokaw, their David
Brinkley. So, what Stewart says matters — a lot.
How might Obama solve his “Stewart” problem? Maybe appear on the show — as he has done six times before, including twice as
president. Stewart would, undoubtedly, challenge Obama on the
problems with the site but would also give the president a platform by which he
could address the growing public perception that the law (or at least the Web
site) just isn’t working.

Chris Cillizza is founder and editor of The Fix, a leading
blog on state and national politics. He is the author of The Gospel According
to the Fix: An Insider’s Guide to a Less than Holy World of Politics and an
MSNBC contributor and political analyst. He also regularly appears on NBC and
NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show. He joined The Post in 2005 and was named one of the
top 50 journalists by Washingtonian in 2009.