This is being played in various markets (including Ryan’s in Wisconsin and accompanied by a huge robocall effort to talk to votes over 45 in Republican House Districts) :
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbvfGlI_xLg[/youtube]
And from the DCCC (this is very good from them — too long for a commercial run, but incredibly clear about the GOPers who ran on protecting Medicare and then got to DC and voted to dismantle it. This ought to be good cut for individual districts):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8FM-tvstas[/youtube]
More of this kind of thing is needed to make sure that folks actually get this — and to stop the media silliness over how ending Medicare is some sort of brave act to balance the budget. Americans overwhelmingly do not want Medicare to be sacrificed to balance the budget and energizing more folks around this is pretty crucial.
And here is an interesting assessment from McClatchy — noting that is looks like Ryan is the new face of the Republican Party:
He’s doing it for two key reasons. Obama wants to shift the public focus away from own contribution to the nation’s skyrocketing debt — which hurt Democrats in the 2010 congressional elections — and onto the Republican Party’s proposed solutions. And he wants to frame the election as a choice between two very different visions of America: The Republican one he calls a dark place for the poor and middle class, and the other his own view of a friendly, more utopian place.
Obama, his top advisers and fellow Democrats believe that Ryan handed them a gift when he proposed a budget plan that would cut taxes by $2 trillion over 10 years and also cut federal spending by $6.2 trillion, cuts which include possibly wrenching changes in the popular Medicare program.
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/04/24/112725/obama-paints-rep-ryan-as-the-gop.html#ixzz1KZGQBe19