Lanhee Chen, the Romney campaign's policy director, is circulating this memo (below). The memo seems similar to what Yuval Levin and Jeffrey H. Anderson have written about Medicare, Obamacare, and the 2012 election.
The end of Medicare and Medicaid as we know them—through reform, the Ryan way, or -bankruptcy, the Obama way. The direction of the country—via the Romney-Ryan right track, or the Obama-Biden wrong track. Those are the choices, made stark by the addition of Paul Ryan to the Republican ticket.
“Old age puts more wrinkles in our minds than on our faces; and we never, or rarely see a soul that in growing old does not come to smell sour and musty. Man grows and dwindles in his entirety.”—Montaigne
Before the sun had set on Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan, the Obama campaign was out with ads talking of the “End Medicare as we know it.”
President Obama is creative. He’s given up on a palpable falsehood about the Romney-Ryan plan to reform Medicare. But he’s retained a few old canards and trotted out a new one.
The new charge? In his speech in Dubuque, Iowa, on Wednesday, he said: “My plan reduces the cost of Medicare by cracking down on fraud and waste and subsidies to insurance companies.”
Warren, Ohio Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan stopped by the Original Hot Dog Shoppe here this afternoon to chat with voters and grab some lunch. The Wisconsin congressman and fitness nut chowed down on two hot dogs with onion, extra kraut and mustard, a side of small chili-cheese fries, and an unsweetened iced tea. The total bill came to $8.78, including a chili-cheese dog Ryan purchased for a reporter celebrating his twenty-seventh birthday.
Oxford, Ohio During a campaign event Wednesday night at Miami University of Ohio, vice presidential candidate and Miami U. alumnus Paul Ryan reminisced about the fond memories of his alma mater. "I spent a lot of formative years here," Ryan said. "I like my Skyline 5-way [chili], turkey gobblers, cheese fries, stickers.” He mentioned the time he got hurt at the local ice rink. “That’s why I have a cleft chin—14 stiches playing hockey here."
The conventional wisdom on the state of the 2012 presidential race is that, thanks to his endorsement of the House GOP Budget and his selection of Paul Ryan to be his running mate, Mitt Romney has opened himself up to one of the Democrats' favorite attacks -- fear-mongering over Medicare, or "Mediscare."
This consensus is wrong; instead, the Democrats are much more vulnerable on this issue in 2012.
Mitt Romney's latest campaign advertisement knocks President Obama for "[cutting] Medicare to pay for Obamacare." The Romney campaign appears to be addressing the Medicare criticisms that come with adding Paul Ryan to the ticket head-on. It's a strategy that's worked for Republicans before, specifically in Nevada's Second Congressional District special election last year.
A new ad from the Romney campaign takes the Democrats' Medicare attacks on Paul Ryan head on. Watch the video below:
"You paid into Medicare for years," the voiceover says. "Every paycheck. Now when you need it, Obama has cut $716 billion from Medicare. Why? To pay for Obamacare. So now the money you paid for your guaranteed health care is going to a massive new government program that's not for you."
In 2009, President Barack Obama conceded that 1/3 of Obamacare funding is taken from Medicare:
ABC's JAKE TAPPER: "One of the concerns about health care and how you pay for it -- one third of the funding comes from cuts to Medicare."
BARACK OBAMA: "Right."
TAPPER: "A lot of times, as you know, what happens in Congress is somebody will do something bold and then Congress, close to election season, will undo it."
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, has just sent out a fundraising letter criticizing her House colleague Paul Ryan, saying a Vice President Ryan would be a "nightmare" and that "we cannot afford to let this man be a heartbeat away from the presidency." Read the email below:
In the single most important test of his leadership prior to November 6, Mitt Romney chose the ideal running mate in Paul Ryan, who will now help Romney in a myriad of ways.
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