Associated Press
Candidates lie because they know many won't know the difference.
On the surface, the very idea seemed ridiculous. Mitt Romney had just chosen his running mate -- Paul Ryan, best known for trying to eliminate the Medicare program and replace it with a voucher scheme -- when the Republican ticket launched an offensive over Medicare. We've all seen campaigns try to use a weakness as a strength, but this stunt would require profound ignorance on the part of voters.
And yet, it may have worked. BuzzFeed reports this morning that Republicans believe "they've fought Medicare to a draw."
Top Republicans kicked off the push for the hearts and minds of reporters covering the Republican National Convention by making the case that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have survived the attacks on Ryan's plan to shift Medicare toward a voucher system.
"This talk about how the Ryan Medicare plan is going to be a huge problem for the Romney-Ryan ticket is just not the case," Republican pollster Whit Ayers, who heads the strategy group Resurgent Republic, told a gathering of the press at a Tampa hotel Monday morning.
This isn't just tough talk at a convention; there's ample evidence that Republicans are right to feel pretty confident about this.
Last week, a New York Times poll showed overwhelming opposition to the Romney/Ryan plan, which would effectively privatize Medicare out of existence. Great news for Democrats, right? Wrong -- most Americans have no idea what Romney/Ryan has in mind for Medicare, and as a result, a plurality of seniors in Florida and Ohio believe the Republican ticket would do a better job protecting Medicare than Obama/Biden.
That doesn't make any sense, of course, but remember, reality no longer matters in post-truth politics.
What about the other polls? The latest survey from CNN shows Obama with a one-point lead on Medicare nationwide, and among seniors, Romney leads on Medicare by five points, 50% to 45%. The new Washington Post/ABC News poll shows overwhelming opposition to the description of the Romney/Ryan plan, but overall, voters still prefer Romney/Ryan on Medicare by three points.
When Romney launched his Medicare offensive, it struck me as absurd -- people are easily fooled, but there's no way the American mainstream could be this confused. The notion that voters would want to protect Medicare and then trust the ticket that wants to eliminate Medicare was simply too ridiculous to believe.
And yet, here we are. Candidates lie in ads because people will believe them.
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I was afraid this would be the case.
Remember when some Democratic strategists polled a focused group and told them what the Romney/Ryan medicare would do and they didn't believe them?yeah!
that was when i said to my wife," don't be surprise that lies and distortions would make Obama lose."
I have a peer who's known for saying,"Don't expect much from country that voted twice for G.W"
USA! USA!
And yet I also blame that librul corporate owned lame-stream media that prints the propaganda that Robme/Ryan plan won't destroy Medicare as we currently know it!!
Maybe Americans really are too dumb for democracy!
Paul Ryan is known as a gouger,
And never a Medicare sloucher!
So take it in stride,
And swallow your pride,
And hand your physician your voucher.
The Dems MUST go on the offensive and start labeling this crap for what it is: LIES! Don't just present the facts, show the LIES and label them as such. (i.e., R&R claim X. This is a LIE. Here is the truth.) Tag line: Do you want a liar in the White House? And they have to do it both constantly and consistently or the Teapublicans are going to get away with it.
Then the media would say the left/Dems are debasing the presidency.
You know,the media is part of our PROBLEMS.
The myth of fairness as oppose to truth and accuracy is killing our political discourse.
If you need any more evidence of Democratic political impotence and incompetence, I don't know what it is.
If Democrats didn't know this was coming, they're flat out stupid. Republicans always do this. If they did know it, is there a better way to understand just had FU KING awful the Democratic political machine is?
From a very recent CBS poll:
Do you support leaving Medicare as it is?
Florida: Yes: 67 No 24
Ohio: Yes: 68 No: 22
Wis: Yes: 60 No: 44
Who would do a better job with Medicare?
Florida: Obama: 44 Romney: 48
Ohio: Obama: 43 Romney: 49
Wis: Obama: 49 Romney: 46
(I thought Ryan was supposed to be problematic for Romney on this in Florida.)
I've been trying to think of a way to measure Democratic political incompetence for a while, and can't think of a better way than to look at those results. From that, my estimate is that Democrats have cost themselves and the nation at least 20% of the national vote by their impotence.
Pathetic. Simply pathetic.
You think incompetence is the answer for this?
Why do think these old voters are more likely to believe Romney over Obama in regards to medicare?
Romney can lie to them and get away with it because they want to believe Romney more than they want to believe the black guy.
What would really tell the story is to see how the Senate candidates in those states look like on those same questions. I'll bet Sherod Brown doesn't have a problem getting senior to believe him about medicare.
That's a tad hyperbole. I know "democrats incompetence" is a pet peeve of yours, but come on.
It is bad messaging by the Dems and not incompetence. This issue should be exploited by Obama during the debates, but first he has to lay the groundwork with educating voters about the Ryan plan. That should also involve every single Dem running for office.
I consider messaging (and timing of the messaging) part of political competence; it is part -- maybe most -- of playing the political game.
Again, how can a competent political organization that has repeatedly seen the Republicans in action NOT know that they are going to try to tear down your strong issues. They selected Ryan, who should have been easy prey for Democrats on entitlements. The Democrats let the issues Ryan should have been easily vulnerable on be squandered. And the Democrats have completely failed to take advantage of their strength.
Seriously, how else can this be explained?
Anybody that knows what's going on understands Republicans have wanted to kill the safety net since FDR and LBJ. And Ryan has been the lead spear with him being the instigator of the 2005 Social Security privatization attempt and his 2011 voucher scheme for Medicare (and only recently offering to keep traditional medicare as an option, which of course will simply end up starving the traditional Medicare program).
20 points? Hyperbole? I don't think so. Look at the Florida numbers. 67% want Medicare left as is. 43% think Obama will do it. 48% (!!!!!) think Romney will do a better job than Obama. He beats Obama!! Are you serious?!?! How can it POSSIBLY be that 48% get it wrong and how can it not be that 100% not think that Obama will be the one most likely to protect traditional Medicare? (They DO get it wrong, of course. That's not really a subjective debate any more than climate change is.) Well, some are going to say that because they're on Team Republican. But the others simply have been lied to and believe it. Democrats had to have known this was coming and they simply did nothing about it.
Again, once a lie/myth is embedded in someone's mind, it is very difficult to remove.
I predicted this would happen. It's not like it's a surprise other than it's just amazing how Democrats never, ever learn.
So everybody is now saying Romney has shifted from the economy. This is wrong. He's saving it for last. He's taken care of destroying several Democratic strengths by lying about them, and next up he's going to start lying about the economy by blaming it on Obama: deficits and debt, unemployment, ..., yadda, yadda, yadda. And it's going to work because Team Obama hasn't inoculated against it. All Democrats know how to do is react. Just watch.
I think the word "lie" is over used on this topic. Romney claims Obama pulled 700 billion from medicare to pay for ACA. That is true. The monies will come from programs like medicare advantage and hospital payments. OH, I forgot to mention fraud. These savings will be produced by how? Romney will restore these cuts.
I think people are beginning to understand the entitlements cannot be sustained without sunstantative change. Buying short term life expectancy is foolish. Let's talk about it now. Romney's plan may not be perfect, but at least he's discussing it
Wrong. It is a LIE. It is a deliberate LIE.
PolitiFact | Mitt Romney said Barack Obama robs Medicare of more than $700 billion to pay for Obamacare
Romney’s Medicare Nonsense | Swampland | TIME.com
Medicare Myths, Debunked
Romney Pivots from Welfare to Lie about Medicare
An Effort To Cut Through Romney-Ryan Doublespeak And Explain What They Really Want To Do | The New Republic
Jonathan Cohn: If Somebody Is Raiding Medicare, It’s Not Obama. It’s Romney And Ryan. | The New Republic
That leaves it up to us . Make sure you tell that person in the next cubical , in the coffee shop , wherever you can .
Tell them if they are thirty , that when their parents retire they are going to have to pick up the slack that the Ryan plan doesn't cover .
Send your kids to college and pick up Ma and Pa's medical shortfalls.
If they are 40 something ask them why they should be cut out and only those over 55 get it .
Break through the lies wherever you can
I know it is tough when you are fighting Faux News but a few votes is going to make a difference in this election.
Fight the stupid.
CandidatesRepublicans lie in ads because our degenerate, useless, cowed MSM clutches its pearls and drags out the fainting couches whenever anyone among them accuses Republicans of lying.It struck me as absurd that a candidate signifying all that brought the world economy to its knees would be selected by default of power and money as a presidential candidate. But that is where we are.
On the Medicare thing, people put about as much thought into this so called debate as the GOP congressmen put into voting for Ryan's budget plan. If this is what constitutes debate, we are all so screwed.
I'm not surprised. Seniors that would vote in Medicare rip-off artist Rick Scott as their governor tells me all I need to know. As long as television stations take the Koch Bros. money to run these ads, there will be the stupidity there to soak them up.
The GOP was well practiced in turning the public against Obamacare with lies and distortions. This is the risk the democrats have in actually governing with all the detail that requires and giving the GOP the floor in framing what it all means. This is exactly why the GOP refuses to give any detail on how any of their policy ideas would be implemented.
You know as much as I really hate saying this, Sarah Palin very well may have been right in labeling the non-conservative news media as being the "lame stream media". It's becoming more and more evident every day to the point that I can hardly stomach watching the egg-shell media treat the republicans with kid gloves with their obvious, and easily verifible lies, over and over and over again.
Did you see Chris Matthews this morning on Morning Joe? He blasted Reince Prievus (?) for the Romney birth certificate comment Friday. He almost jumped down his throat! It was wonderful. But Mikka and Scarborough tamped him down saying it was prime time and they needed to be more civilized.
These jokers need to be called out for their incendiary remarks. When was having a birth certificate funny? It's just a fact. The humor comes from the undertones the Repubs infuse in their speech. Would Romney have made that remark to an all-Black audience? Hell no.
@Mission Possible
i saw the clip of Matthews tearing into Priebus. I particularly loved the look on Priebus' face when Matthews didn't drop the subject at Mika and Joe's request, Matthews stating something along the lines of well someone has to call you out for your constant fabrications. Priebus stuttered and tried to laugh it all off but looked like the empty suit, used car salesman that he is (How the hell did Michael Steele loose the job to this chump?).
i only wish Mr. Matthews had not started in with the race card as the first premise, and all out frontal attacked on the dishonesty flooding the media by the Romney campaign and its allies. Republicans are so used to race baiting with plausible denial that it isn't worth using except as a final nail in the coffin...
I think what we're seeing here is a result of the Romney campaign's "Obama is stealing from Medicare" strategy. The ads are all over TV. I've actually seen them in NY where Romney/Ryan really have no chance to win. Since Ryan was introduced, he and Romney have talked (i.e., lied) about little else. I expect the polls will change as the truth about their plan gets more attention. At least I hope so.
Bring on the debates! And hope the voters will actually watch.
I went on the AARP website this morning out of curiosity. They have a section under politics called current events. Articles are written in such a format that they are perceived as factual. One of these states that "over 500 economists support Romney for president." A lot of the seniors dispute this but over 490 read this and only 144 commented. Another article was about the Colorado professors and their predications showed Romney to be the winner. The list goes on & on! Thanks! Help!
As long as those seniors don't really care much about keeping the current Medicare system intact, they can feel free to vote for Romney/Ryan.
If Romney is elected, those over 65 shouldn't be surprised some day soon when they find themselves out shopping for insurance. Very EXPENSIVE insurance, if it's available to them at all.
The question of "who do you trust on Medicare" is the wrong question.
With the 90+% of likely voters already firmly decided, you are simply asking them once again "which team are you on?"
What you have to do is ask about the policy proposal, without mentioning Romney or Obama or the Ryan budget. "Are you for or against a voucher system to replace Medicare?"
Exactly. Seniors vote Republican more that Dem. And I think seniors, who are from a different era of race relations are more willing to believe one of these candidates over the other.
Guess which one they are less likely to trust? Even on medicare.
Yeah, Obama is a Democrat, but there's something different about him.
hmm
But how/why did it get that way? Why do seniors vote Republican when it is Democratic ideas and policies that have given their later years much more ease-of-mind than Republicans have and would?
Unfortunately, it has to do with age. These people grew up in an era where the "older white men" were the authority figures in their lives. The "older white man" was their pastor, the "older white man" was their boss, the "older white man" was the patriarchal figure in their lives, and remember when they grew up, the US was very much based on a patriarchal society. So who are they going to believe now about what is best for them?
I know it is sad, but if you want to get through to seniors, you need an "older white man" with "authority" (someone like a well known pastor or a well known businessman) to champion Obama's Medicare Plan, because that is who they believe.
That has little to do with it. Seniors vote Republican because Dems simply haven't combatted the nonsense coming out of the Right Wing Noise Machine. Over 30 years of this non-feasance to political lies and you get what we have now: people believing shhit that isn't true. It didn't have to turn out this way. But one side set out to win, and the other side set back and watched them, ever so often pretending to be the mature act by compromising (ever further and further to the right). Inexcusable political incompetence. And it's come to a head; we're in danger of losing the 20th century to despicable people.
And we already have a template for the Ryan Medicare scheme - it's called Medicare Advantage or Medicare Part C. Involves a senior eligible for Medicare A,B & D to select a commercial insurance company to issue a Medicare Advantage policy that combines traditional Medicare coverage into one commercial insurance policy. Insurance company receives a stipend (around $5k) direct from Medicare, plus about $3k from the insured senior. Result: a commercial insurance policy with a $300 annual deductible, 80/20% co-insurance until the 20% reaches $3,000 in out-of-pocket costs, then the plan pays 100% thereafter for balance of the calendar year. Compares with traditional Medicare Parts A,B & D + Medigap policy. Only problem - it's costing Medicare a fortune to provide this commercial insurance feature & much of the touted $716B removed from Medicare is the the 10 year future cost of providing this commercial insurance option. Under Ryan's plan, there will be no taxpayer bailout for the commercial insurance - that cost will be directly charged to seniors covered by such a plan starting in ten years.
Exactly! A summary of your remarks needs to be included in Obama's ads. Underline: Advantage Plans are just what Ryan is proposing and what Obama is cutting to save costs, and the future of Medicare.
I fear that we here have the confluence of the most racially bigoted age group with the Medicare lies of the GOP. In other words, I suspect that race is playing into this, in that seniors will be more likely to believe Romney ads than Obama ads because Obama is that black man in the White House.
You mean, The Perfect Storm?
or
DWB--Driving While being Black?
I'm sorry to say I absolutely agree with you. My Dad is part of that crowd.
Yeah, sorry to say (as someone in the age group) that the most "racial progress" most white Americans have made is learning not to say "ni**er" in public. One thing a lot of people don't realize is that all of us back in the Sixties for whom "The Sixties" happened (other than learning to grow their hair long and smoke marijuana, with nothing else politically) constituted something less than 15% of the age cohort. For the rest, "The Sixties" never happened.
Fought the Medicare Debate to a draw??
I think this fight hasn't even began, not for real.
I think the fight will become real when Romney is the actual candidate.
.
Let's not forget that today's seniors - those 55 and over, in the way that Ryan/Romney divvy up the benefits - are the people who, 30 years ago, were 25 and over, and overwhelmingly in rapt love with Ronald Reagan. Those people's partisan preferences were set in stone at that point and haven't changed a lick since.
Don't know what PBO's problem is in putting together an effective message on health care and Medicare. The campaign appears to be incapable of understanding how to talk to seniors. I've been bitching about this for three years. Even without Ryan it was clear Mitt was going to go this route and the campaign was not only not ready and slow to respond but it responded with the same long winded, tired, defensive posture they've used for three years.
I love this President but I cannot fathom why it is so damned difficult for him to get the messaging right on health care and Medicare. I follow this stuff and even I didn't know about the benefits from ACA for Medicare recipients until the Thursday before the 2010 election when my husband got his Medicare booklet. The best kept secret in the world, while the tea party was scaring seniors all that summer. And nothing changed after that in terms of messaging from the administration.
"Ending Medicare as we know it" is an okay phrase. But "ending GUARANTEED BENEFITS" will make more sense to scared seniors. Savings from over-payments to insurance companies, not "cuts".
The narrative is still disjointed and cerebral instead of visceral and emotional. Why or why do Dem's have such a problem with this?
Well, I DON’T believe it. After months, this is the ONE issue that has finally moved in either direction in the polls? All the other polling, on the majority of other issues remains the same, and the state of the race also remains the same. But, all of a sudden ONE issue (handling Medicare) has had a sudden dramatic change, so quickly in the polls? I noticed the polls about Medicare started to “neutralize” almost as soon as Paul Ryan entered the race! The republicans didn’t even seem to have to push the LIE that long, that Barack Obama was the one who was really trying to kill Medicare, before the polls suddenly started to change. The timing seems fishy. I don’t believe these polls, at all.
How is it that voters suddenly don’t trust Barack Obama to protect Medicare, yet at the same time the majority of voters trust him to look out for the middle-class, and the poor? You would think Barack Obama’s poll numbers would be plummeting, if all these old, white people thought the black “Muslim” was trying to take away their Medicare.
And, how is it that voters who still don’t like Mitt Romney, don’t trust him, don’t believe a word he says, and don’t think he gives a damn about the middle-class, suddenly trust him more to protect Medicare?
I. Don’t. Believe. It.
I think the republicans got the pollsters to tamper with the polling to make people believe the republicans have “neutralized” the democrats on the issue of Medicare, so that the democrats will think it’s a dead issue, and stop attacking the Romney/Ryan plan. That, or it is scared, old, white farts who were already going to vote for Mitt Romney, anyway, that is causing this sudden change in the polls.
Well, the Republicans aren't winning them all with their lies about Medicare and SocSec. My mother, a 72 year old Republican who is still working, for the very first time in my lifetime will be voting for a Democrat in the presidential election. Her reason? She can't believe the stupidity of the Ryan budget plan with regard to Medicare and is starting to believe that the ACA may actually be the right strategy for containing the rising costs of healthcare. BTW, my mother is also a nurse who runs an outpatient post-op ward in a hospital that is classified as a trauma center in Orange County, CA.
Her boyfriend, a retired anesthesiologist, will be voting for Obama as well, for pretty much the same reasons. They no longer trust the Republican party, especially not Romney/Ryan, with their retirement or with the economy at large. I know it is just two older people in a hugely conservative county in a state that will definitely go to Obama but I bet there are a lot more out there who are tired of "trickle down" and these fantasy free-market remedies. They lived through Reagan, Bush I and Bush II and they are worried that Romney/Ryan will just be more of the same.
i'm almost to the point that i am fascinated by the prospect of a romney /ryan administration. if nothing else, it would be gratifying to watch as the light bulbs in the minds of millions of credulous dimwits came on.
Yeah, but we have to suffer for the dimwits. I'm sure intelligent people in Germany in 1933 thought that too.
Jim, in some ways I think that the spectacular Charlie Foxtrot that a Ryan/Romney administration with a solid majority in the House and 51 votes in the Senate [1] would be one of the best long-term things for the country. Kind of like waking up when you're dumped naked into ice water.
There's just one little problem with that idea, though, and her name is Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
[1] You don't really think they'd make the mistake of keeping the filibuster rule, do you?
Romney can lie to them and get away with it because they want to believe Romney more than they want to believe the black guy.
Sadly, this is right. The other week I was at an event where I met and was talking to a very intelligent older lady. And it came out that she was worried about what the president was doing to Medicare. I took the moment to explain to her that there was no "taking" of benefits, what exactly the $716 billion reduction was, that Republicans had proposed it and Ryan had voted for it, that it made things better. She listened to the whole thing and at the end she said, "but why would that nice Mr. Romney lie to us then?"
Yes, it has everything to do with those seniors who believe this b.s. being white.
Why shouldn't they? News reports treat the lie and the truth identically. He-said, she-said.
I believe Rachel was right when she mentioned on her show that the Obama admin. has done a poor job in explaining exactly how the ACA will work. There are many who are afraid that they will be penalized by the IRS if they do not have insurance and others are afraid that it will be diminished care from what we now have. These fears play right into Romney's lies about the plan.
The other thing that no one seems to be talking about yet, is the fact that this new documentary about Obama is really taking off at the box office. I haven't seen it and probably won't but imagine it to be more of the same from the Republicans.
I too would love to see the outcome if Romney did win, if the reality weren't so darn scary!
And could someone tell me just when the Death Panels have been convened? Who chaired such panels, & who served on them? And exactly how many chronically ill seniors were hauled before these panels - and how many orders were issued to euthanize them? And how many, to date, have actually been euthanized? Could someone please provide some data on that, since we were so repeatedly warned of this by elected, sitting Republican officials? Why are there no follow-up questions on this subject that once took up so much air time, and print space???