Republicans Winning Medicare War

politico, wednesday morning:

“Medicare just may not be the killer issue that a lot of people thought,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “That doesn’t mean it won’t be, but so far it is not.”

The polls show “a positive development for the Republicans that they could be even on Medicare at this point,” said pollster Carroll Doherty of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, in what could be the understatement of the year.

“Long term, as the campaign plays out, I would be very surprised if this issue didn’t redound very strongly to Obama’s benefit. But,” [Bob] Shrum said, the Romney campaign has “thrown up the static of the $716 billion cut in Medicare.” He added, “There’s a real advantage for Obama here, but he’s going to have to develop it, and he’s going to have to block the static that’s coming from Romney.”

“I don’t get the sense that they expected that attack or were ready to thrust back on it, and that’s something that they may now regret or try to fix,” [Joe] Trippi said. “The Republicans were better prepared for the attack coming than we were for the response.”

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No kaboom from Paul Ryan Medicare bomb - Edward-Isaac Dovere and David Nather - POLITICO.com

paul begala is subsequently quoted---he compares democrat's ownership of the medicare issue to the us development of the atom bomb in june, 1945, ie, two months before the big kaboom

"all in due time, my pretty," concluded the clintonista loyalist

what's turned these prominent dem spokesfolk are the internals from a quartet of polls in the last two weeks---abc/wp, pew, cbs/nyt/qn and nbc/wsj

seniors are just not showing that reaction to generational scare tactics they're supposed to

chris christie last nite---seniors are not selfish, they want medicare preserved for themselves AND their grandkids

paul ryan tonite---obama cut 716B from medicare to pay for obamacare, the biggest threat to medicare is obamacare and we're gonna repeal it

republicans are attacking on medicare, dems are moving to social issues (and extremely divisive social issues, at that)

romney/ryan intend to hammer harder after the convention and into november, they will use their massive cash advantage to frame the argument, to get their word out

ed schultz yesterday: Schultz: "Republican Medicare Lies Could Be Working" | RealClearPolitics

howard dean---there's so much money behind these lies, that's why they're effective

the polls the pundits point to, by the way, range in sample from D+4 to D+9

party on, progressives

It only has to be important in one state..