In an interview with Elizabeth Drew, Vin Weber, one of the brightest lights in the GOP, points out that repeal of President Obama’s health-care plan “was a central feature of almost every Republican who ran.”

Weber further observes that “they don’t want to stop fighting about it until the battle is over. The left base loves it even though they think it was inadequate; they, too, think it will take them to a single-payer system. It’s going to be trench warfare, as in World War I.”

Weber goes on to say (according to Drew’s characterization of his comments) that the Republicans’ plan is to

fight the health care bill on three fronts: in Washington, to cripple it by stripping away the funds to implement it; in the state capitols, where governors are resisting implementation on fiscal grounds; and in suits against it by state attorney generals, about twenty thus far, who have challenged in court, on constitutional grounds, the requirement that people buy insurance.

It is quite remarkable that an achievement of this magnitude, which after all is now encoded in law, is the subject of such a fierce, protracted political struggle. The reason is fairly simple, though: the GOP sees opposition to ObamaCare as not only merited on substance but also as a clear political winner — and based on the results of the 2010 midterm elections, that’s a perfectly reasonable conclusion to draw.