Republicans didn’t pay that much of a price for trying to privatize Social Security in 2005, because the plan got nuked so fast that not many Republicans signed on to it. The longer the Republicans pussy-foot around with this Ryan bullshit, the better. The fact that the Village fanbois are throwing their panties at Ryan makes it that more likely that these shmucks will get suckered into going on Morning Joe and gushing about pulling the plug on grandma.
Even the DCCC must be smart enough to know that if they buy up all the ads on Matlock and Wheel Of Fortune in fall 2012 and bombard the oldsters with ads about how Republicans pledged to destroy Medicare, they’ll be able to pick up votes.
dr. bloor
You’re giving the DCCC a lot more credit than they’ve earned.
TJ
Wanna bet?
Holden Pattern
I gotta go with the skeptics here. If there’s one thing that we know about the Democratic leadership classes, it’s that most of them don’t really know how to (and/or have learned not to) attack effectively to their right. Maybe that’s because as they keep shrinking that zone to their right, it’s much harder to hit.
Now, hippie-punching, that’s a different matter entirely.
Master of Karate and Friendship
Isn’t losing Congress a price?
As for thinking the Democratic party will play this to their advantage, didn’t President Obama announce his re-election campaign the day this plan came out? Did he say anything about it?
Social Outcast
Wishful thinking. In 2012, the Republicans will have convinced large segments of the voting public that it was the democrats who wanted to replace medicare with vouchers and private insurance because it was the approach favored by Obama with his healthcare.
General Stuck
i’m guessing that dems in congress are kind of dumbfounded at the totally peeled wingnut onion that has been handed them by Ryan. They, like the rest of us, are used to layers of bullshit and Orwellian doublespeak that is created by the basement Gnomes of the Frank Luntz’s of the world. None of that here. Straight out of primal regions of the lizard brain.
I predict even the media’s initial usual schlocking of gooper brilliant ideas will soon drop this manifesto of a wingnut class war endgame. If not, then we are doomed anyways, and might as well go fishing.
DBrown
Please, Stewart the dickhead says BOTH sides are equally at fault – who should I believe, the truth or Stewart? Thugs are people too and demorats need to bend over more or else stewart the dickhead will continue to say both sides are guilty – what a ass that shit has become.
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik
Again, Doug, you have much more faith in rationality and the ‘wheel of history’ than I do. Remember “Get your government hands off my Medicare!”?
Most of these folks won’t wake up until they know what’s hit them, and it’ll be too late by then. They’ll continue voting for the GOP because they sound nice, and they hate libs and the leeches enough, and they’re too dumb to realize that they’re gov’t subsidized, until the checks start to dry up. And again, by then, it’ll be too late for them. The GOP will already have won and raped the vault dry.
BGinCHI
From the TPM report on Ryan’s plan and his numbers:
“But the model they use, which they attribute to analyst IHS Global Insight, appears to be out there even according to its creators. Nigel Gault, the chief economist for Global Insight told the National Journal’s Tim Fernholz that he has no idea how Heritage came up with their conclusions.
“I’m not quite sure what assumption … would deliver 2.8 percent unemployment,” Gault said. “We might assume different parameters.”
TPM reached out to the Heritage Foundation study’s authors to ask about some of the criticism’s of their analysis, but did not immediately receive a reply.”
Gault? Gault?
No wonder Heritage used his numbers.
Zifnab
@dr. bloor:
The DCCC knows how to kick a dead horse. It’s less a question of whether they’ll be able to pursue the right strategy and more a question of what kind of candidates they’ll back.
If it’s just incumbency racket and back scratching, we’ll get another crop of Blue Dogs that aren’t a lot better than the guys who were tossed out in ’10. If they throw their weight behind some honest progressives and populists, and they aren’t afraid to dip a toe in the red states and purple districts, we might get some exciting pickups.
mick
sometimes i think that the dems are playing a very cagey strategy of letting the rethugs hang themselves, while quietly playing out more rope to them, a little more rope, and so on…
but the hanging moment never seems to come. and then i realize that the dems are just as beholden to village approval and big money as ever, and actually agree with the rethugs.
all the union support thrown behind obama and dems in 2008, and all they wanted was one thing: card check.
did they get card check? you tell me.
i believe that the dems are actually playing that rope out to us, and we keep fucking taking it. and they are getting the rope from the rethugs.
sad, no?
singfoom
Ah Doug, I wish it were so. I wish the DCCC would step up and point out the blatant lies, the manipulation of data and just say this whole plan is horseshit.
Hammer them on their rehashing of old ideas already proven not to work.
“Paul Ryan and the other Republicans want to take away your Medicare, that you’ve spent all these years paying into. They’re going to take away your benefits and replace them with vouchers to private plans. Plans that cost more, and won’t do anything to fix our budget. Please, help us stop them and save your Medicare.”
There, the shit writes itself. Slightly different message for those under 55….
I’ll hold my breath waiting for a D ad that actually uses those ideas and languages. You guys will help me when I pass out, right?
JGabriel
I don’t know, DougJ. The problem with giving your opponents enough rope is that they usually try to strangle you with it.
.
Katie5
I love the franglish of “fanbois”. So fans are getting woodies for Paul Ryan?
drkrick
This plan won’t shut down Medicare for anyone over 55 when it takes affect. One of the stunners for me in the HCR process was just how little the old folks cared that the rest of the country was screwed as long as they were taken care of. I think this can be made toxic for the GOP with the people it affects, but based on the last couple of years, those born before 1956 will pretty much not give a damn.
So those commercials need to be booked onto a slightly different set of reruns.
Comrade DougJ
@Katie5:
Oh yeah, big time.
Chris
@The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
And when they do wake up and smell the shit, they’ll say it all came from liberals. Thus it’s been for the last thirty years, and why should it change?
loretta
@drkrick:
From my experience, seniors don’t pay attention to the details of what changes and what does not change in Medicare. Most of the ones I deal with now think the ACA cut Medicare and don’t know how the “donut hole” closed up 50% this year. They don’t know they have free preventative care this year.
So, just mentioning “Medicare cuts” in an ad will get their attention, regardless of whether or not it affects 55 and under. They will think it applies to them.
I’m in the camp that says EXPLOIT THIS.
Chris- The Fold
Best summation of the Ryan plan yet, “now let’s push this giant ball of oil out the window.”
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@JGabriel:
THat or you give them too much rope and they just climb out the window on you.
That’s part of the problem as well: too much leeway to hang themselves, which is why they never do.
Loneoak
@Katie5:
‘Fanbois’ actually makes me think less of French and more of transgender/gender queer ‘bois’.
JillS
@dr. bloor:
that was my thought too…
Zifnab
@singfoom:
:-p There haven’t been a lot of exciting new ideas in politics. “Hey, let’s get off fossil fuels” has been kicked around since Nixon. “Revise the tax code to benefit the /insert group here/” is a policy as old as the tax code itself. “Subsidize X” / “Discourage Y” plans date back to the colonies.
And hard facts don’t carry a lot of weight in a political debate, because everyone is calling the other guy a liar. The voter really doesn’t have time earn his MBA so he can parse out the legitimate policy from the bullshit.
So you’re left with a lot of emotional appeals and insinuations about the opponent’s moral character and expert endorsements and the like.
It’s not like all the DCCC has to do is throw up a few billboards that say, “The Republican Candidate kills kittens” even if the candidate has a live-kitten stabbing factory in his basement. The RNCC will just run some ad with Glenn Beck crying that claims the opponent eats babies. And the voter won’t know what the hell to believe.
Zifnab
@drkrick:
This is one instance in which the American public’s inability to appreciate nuance is refreshing. If Ryan says “We’re cutting Medicare by $3 trillion – but only for people under 55”, you just play the clip of him saying the first half. But when he runs back to explain himself, people will just wave it off as too complex to understand.
drkrick
@Zifnab: I like the way you think.
Culture of Truth
buy up all the ads on Matlock and Wheel Of Fortune in fall 2012
They’re all watching Fox News
Which makes wonder how they will polish this turd. By pointing out the cuts are in the future, I suppose.
PeakVT
Even the DCCC must be smart enough to know that
Is this the same DCCC the blew a million bucks defending Bobby Bright last cycle?
singfoom
@Zifnab: I know that, but at the very least, they should attempt to aggressively communicate the facts and fight the zombie lies.
Yes, I know of the research about people not responding to correct information after swallowing the incorrect information. I don’t think that means that the message shouldn’t be put out there.
The only other choice I see is to let the zombies lie just sit there and not refute them and not get a message out there…. Maybe it won’t have much effect, but they should at least try.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@PeakVT: My biggest concern is the DSCC, which will no doubt filter its response through the keen political minds and dedicated progressive sensibilities of Claire McCaskill and Ben Nelson.
Steve
Democrats always seem to get sucked into an endless replay or Reagan’s “there you go again” moment. They will say “Republicans want to abolish Medicare,” Republicans will respond “everyone loves Medicare, this is just more Democratic fearmongering,” and then the Dems kind of shrug their shoulders and slink off. There is no reason to let go of an issue like this but it’s as if they aren’t really convinced, in their own minds, that Republicans believe the things they believe.
JGabriel
@drkrick:
Cheers and NYPD Blue it is, then? Or Dancing With The Stars (which I consider the Lawrence Welk of the 21st C.)?
Sigh. You can all tell that I haven’t had a TV in 28 years, right?
.
Sentient Puddle
Speaking of…news, I guess? Any case, assume there was a smooth segue there, and reports indicate that Glenn Beck is ending his Fox News show when his contract expires. Though he’ll supposedly remain on Fox as a contributor of some sort or another…details are weird at this point.
Nied
I don’t think people quite appreciate the timing of all this too. We’re about to be inundated with reports about how Republicans rejected compromises to prevent a government shut down because they couldn’t get enough of their plan through, while simultaneously hearing about how the Republican’s new plan is to end Medicare and Medicaid and raise taxes on the middle class to pay for more tax cuts for millionaires. Sure there’s a fair number of people who will know that these are two separate but related issues, but how many people are going to conflate the two and think “Republicans shut down the government because Democrats wouldn’t agree to kill medicare”?
Dan
I want to make the ad where someone knocks a geezer off a scooter then runs away with it.
danimal
One thing I’m sure of: if liberals act like petulant babies conceding defeat before the battle begins, we will lose.
And I’m not talking about congressional Dems this time. Just read all the negativity here, none of which is backed by any indication that there is a Dem anywhere close to power that buys into Ryan’s budget.
Progressive whiners–the Dems are on your side (saving Medicare/Medicaid) and you’re taking your shots at them instead of Ryan and the GOP. BRILLIANT politics!
FlipYrWhig
@Nied: Plus the whole Scott Walker thing. I don’t think you need to follow politics too closely to be able to feel convinced that Republicans are drunk on power and lashing out at everyone in reach.
Jennifer
As I noted elsewhere, this presents the Dems with a huge opportunity for reinforcing their brand, if they could message effectively, which we know they cannot. Who are the asshats they’re paying millions to for advice, and why won’t they just give a fraction of it to me to actually come up with things that work?
Anyhoo…an entire campaign could be hung on running in favor of Roosevelt’s ideals embodied in the New Deal vs. today’s GOP’s ideals … the RAW Deal.
Imagine the ads: “In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt offered a nation suffering from economic disaster the New Deal. Today, as the country reels from the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression, Republicans promise us a Raw Deal.”
& so on, and so forth.
There’s a name for the GOP’s master plan: The Raw Deal. Pass it on.
FlipYrWhig
@danimal: I know, it’s constant: “They’ll find a way to fuck this up, or, even if they don’t, wait for it, they’ll fuck up the next thing even worse.” Christ.
Dennis SGMM
Even the DCCC…
My party has mastered the art of feigning catatonia when opportunity knocks. Most of the time they allow the Republicans to lead them around by the nose. I’ve worked to support Democratic candidates for decades but, it’s now more out of habit than out of any hope that they’ll be effective against the Republicans.
Cat Lady
“I’ve fallen and I can’t get Medicare!”
There’s your ad for the demo you need in 2012 DNC. You’re welcome.
Ajay
@The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
Agreed. Republicans are just too smart for an average moron in our great land. After all they are handling out 15K to seniors for insurance in later years. In couple of years after the implementation, they will seek to reduce it to zero and make Paul Ryan look like a socialist.
BTW, isnt what Paul Ryan is doing called socialism?
Chris
@Jennifer:
Word up.
cleek
@danimal:
if the Dem leadership gave a flying fuck about what people say here, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
they’re gonna go on and do their thing and the rest of us are going to sit here wondering WTF ?
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Katie5: I thought the same thing. Great minds.
Comrade DougJ
@Dan:
I like it.
vtr
I am flummoxed. My generation blew dope and got laid every night, marched for civil rights and against the war, voted for liberal Democrats, and… I’ve been ashamed of my generation since Jerry Rubin decided to hock stock on Wall Street. Holy Crap. The other day I told my next door neighbor that having been a union member while working in a machine shop, I was a very strong supporter of unions. I thought he was going to call the FBI. The thing is, he used to be a union memer, too. I figure when Medicare comes around and takes back their little electric scooters, they’ll finally figure out they’ve buttboned by the GOP.
Sorry about that. I had a tick removed from my arm this morning, and those tetenus shots really hurt sometimes.
aimai
@Jennifer:
Jennifer–Great, great points. The key to winning the brand loyalty issue is narrative, narrative, narrative and repetition, repetition, repetition. That’s two words, three times each, btw.
I was just talking about the MA Senate race with some other people and I was hammering this point home. Scott Brown is going to have a story–and we have to have a counter story. When people plug into a given race they are presented with, on the Republican side, a hard hitting set of easy to understand messages and on the Democratic side an every shifting set of whining, whinging, muffled squeaks and whimpers. I’m sorry to say it, but its true. Someone upthread said that we can’t run billboard after billboard saying Mr. R with R after his name wants to kill your grandma and eat her kittens. Sure we can. And we should do it over and over and over again. Only in that way can we begin to combat the confusion the ordinary voter feels when the Republicans say “Death Panels!” and the Democrats say
“Well, that’s not entirely accurate thought I do understand how given the complexity of the legislative process a person might honestly think that we were not wholly committed to the health and welfare of our older and somewhat physically and mentally challenged senior citizen population…”
Words. Of. One. Syllable. The Raw Deal. Repeat it until voters can repeat it in their sleep.
aimai
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
So you’re saying that if I enjoy Wheel Of Fortune, I must be an old?
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@vtr: @vtr:
I think this is where the pessimism keeps coming from. As Rachel Maddow put it over the last few shows, it’s not enough to win Elections at this point. We need to win the Arguments as well, and way too often, our leaders aren’t even fighting the arguments. They cede them before they start. I mean, we went from torture being totally off-limits to publicly arguing ‘Are we torturing enough?’. We went from stable Social Security support to ‘How much do we really need to cut from Soc. Sec.’?. The arguments that need to be fought aren’t being fought, and the ones that are already show so much ground being ceded that whoever wins, we’ve already lost.
Meh
@FlipYrWhig: You can complain about the complainers, but poor leadership leads to a loss of confidence and a shitload of griping. This is true in politics, business, Star Trek fan clubs, whatever.
dadanarchist
Has the Sully walk-back commenced yet?
I stopped reading him when he started pimping entitlement cuts as the answer to all our problems and gave up completely when he switched to Tina Brown’s vanity moneysuck.
NonyNony
@Zifnab:
Oh hell don’t even do that – that would give the “journalists” doing op-eds something to tar the Democrats with – that they’re pulling a Breitbart on poor widdle Paul Ryan.
Stay with the actual facts – “Paul Ryan wants to cut Medicare by $3 trillion dollars”. Don’t give them a “but they doctored the tape” excuse to hang on – make him come out and explain, over and over again very slowly, that it “only applies to those who are under 55”.
Because every fucking time the man does that two things will happen:
* None of the seniors will hear him. Nor will they believe it if they do. After all, if he has to explain himself like that he must be hiding something.
* Someone over the age of 50 but under the age of 55 will suddenly come to the realization that the Republicans want them to just shut up and die.
And I have news for the folks who are over 55 – you’re next. If you allow the Republicans to “buy you off” with something like this they will come after you next. It’s “under 55” right now, but once they’ve killed it for us young-uns it’ll be that much easier for folks my age to say “why are we paying this tax again? Aren’t we all Taxed Enough Already?” and take a shiv to the oldsters.
The oldsters who vote Republican should look at the children they’ve raised – do they trust those little Republicans they raised to do the “right” thing, or will their little John Galts view their elders as parasites and take a pillow to their faces at the first opportunity? I know where I’d put my money were I a betting man…
Judas Escargot
@aimai:
Scott Brown spoke out against the efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, the whole “it just goes to far” schtick– less than two weeks after he had voted for exactly that. his poll numbers went up, anyway.
Not the first time he’s pulled that, BTW, he pulled much the same trick with the FinReg bill.
The Dems here had better be running “Scott Brown: Proven Liar” ads 24/7 next year, or I will be very disappointed.
Bob L
As accurate as that is, that is still way too much information.
JCT
OK, this was inspired and made me crack up — awesome visual and 100% true. And the Democrats better waste no time in hanging this albatross tightly around these asshole’s necks.
Bobby Thomson
Your analysis assumes that the current crop of Democrats eventually will go nuclear on the current crop of Republicans over Medicare privatization.
I wish I could be that confident that they would.
aimai
@Judas Escargot:
Be prepared to be very, very, dissapointed. I love “Scott Brown: Proven Liar” but I don’t see any deep pocketed Dem with name recognition willing to even get into the race. No one asked me to be Capuano’s campaign manager but my campaign for him had the slogan:
“Capuano: I’m not pretty/but I’ll get the job done.” Also: “The Senate shouldn’t be a Gentlemen’s Club” plus my plan was for Capuano to never be photographed other than sitting at a desk, with his sleeves rolled up. Hell, I wanted to paint even bigger bags under his eyes and emphasize his pallor. “To busy working for you to drive some god damned fake truck!”
aimai
Poopyman
How do I get Debbie Wasserman Schultz to read this thread? Not only is it chock full of ready–made talking points, it has distilled everything the Dem base feels is wrong with the organization she’s inherited, and what she needs to overcome.
Way to go, y’all.
Lol
Great. Financial advice from the folks that poured $10 million into Halter’s run so that he could be the one to lose in November instead of Lincoln.
It’s also be great if you guys could decide whether you want the DCCC to play in red/purple districts or you want them to stop supporting the Blue Dogs who end up running there.
joe from Lowell
I disagree; Republicans paid a huge price for trying to privatize Social Security. That loss completely blunted the political momentum they had coming out of the highly-successful 2004 elections, and was a big reason for their huge defeat in the2006 Congressional elections. They were back on heels politically for about five years before the rout ended.
joe from Lowell
@Poopyman:
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was right there in Pelosi’s leadership when she came out with “Never. Does never work for you?” in response to Social Security privatization.
In that fight, the Democrats did exactly what everyone here is saying they should do, and it worked wonderfully.
I don’t think the new DNC Chair is the one who needs to get this message.
Not An Optimist
@NonyNony
THIS. So, so true. Their ultimate goal is to helotize everyone not born into the top 1-2%. Nirvana for the Ryans will come when everyone will just have to settle for paying all medical expenses with pocket money– and tough if you can’t fork out the cash.
Comrade Luke
Isn’t there another message, from Republicans?
“Look at the house bill. Like it? All we need is a majority in the Senate and it will become law”.
The Senate is in the balance in ’12; we could easily see this “budget” proposed again in two years. And passed.
catclub
Ryan’s plan also privatizes social security. of cousre that is small potatoes compared to wiping out Medicare.
Judas Escargot
@aimai:
Big Capuano fan here (Somerville’s my home town). Wasn’t too happy when my fellow Dems went for the apparatchik AG in the primaries.
There was some hope that Salem’s Mayor would run against Sen. Brown (local pundits, being what they are, were already calling it ‘the beauty contest’), but she just announced that she’d be focusing on at least one more term as Mayor instead.
Markey, maybe? I don’t think Barney Frank has any interest in being a Senator.
DFH no.6
@Comrade Luke:
Dude, tovarisch: Obama veto. No way President Obama signs any Republican law destroying Medicare.
Fascists have to get both the Senate and the Presidency in ’12.
Not saying they won’t, but I think it unlikely. If they do the Ryan destruction of our national medical care safety net will be only one among many catastrophes that’ll swamp our fair land.
If the Confederate Party gains both the Senate and the Presidency, along with keeping the House of Reps (of course, they have the SCOTUS, for most purposes anyway) then we are well and truly fucked.
I’ve spent nearly 40 years being cautiously and just-barely optimistic about American politics and the future of my country. Not sure we recover from that. The boot smashing our face forever will have Michelle Bachmann’s stiletto heel attached.