Democrats to Send a Fruit Basket to Paul Ryan: Thanks for 2012, We Couldn't Have Done it Without You
Paul Ryan Already Prepare for The 2012 Backlash... with Charts.
Six Months After Midterm Disaster, Hopeful Signs for Democrats
Here’s what I wrote two weeks ago about the special election in New York’s 26th Congressional District, which was won by the Democrat Kathy Hochul Tuesday night:
[If] Ms. Hochul can get her vote up into the mid-to-high 40s - as the Democratic candidates did in 2006 and 2008 while facing only one viable opponent instead of two - then the Democrats will be entitled to a round of beer; it will be one small sign (though just one) that the electoral environment has moved toward what it was in stronger Democratic years.
Ms. Hochul, with most of the vote counted, has 48 percent of the total, so she has met this threshold. The rest of the vote was split among the Republican, Jane Corwin, with 42 percent, the the Tea Party candidate, Jack Davis, with 9 percent, and the Green Party’s Ian Murphy, with 1 percent.
Suppose that Mr. Davis and Mr. Murphy were not running, and that this were a true two-way race between Ms. Hochul and Ms. Corwin. If Ms. Corwin had won all of Mr. Davis’s vote (and Ms. Hochul won all of Mr. Murphy’s vote), she would have won 51-49.
That would still qualify as a bad night for the Republicans, however. Based on the way that the district votes in presidential elections, it is 6 percentage points more Republican than the country as a whole. That means, roughly speaking, that in a neutral political environment with average candidates, Ms. Corwin would have won 56 percent of the vote and Ms. Hochul 44 percent - a 12-point victory. A 2-point win instead, therefore, would have spoken to a relatively poor political environment for the Republicans.
Nor is it likely that Ms. Corwin would in fact have won all of Mr. Davis’s votes. He ran in the district as a Democrat in 2006, and polls suggested that his voters leaned Republican by roughly a 2-1 margin, but not more than that. If you had split his vote 2-1 in favor of Ms. Corwin, the results would have been Ms. Hochul 51 percent, and Ms. Corwin 48 percent.
So Republicans can’t really pin the blame for this result on Mr. Davis. They do, however, have a couple of more credible arguments.
First, any one special election probably does not have all that much predictive power. Once there are several special elections, they may begin to mean something, but one taken in isolation is a rather fuzzy indicator.
Second, Ms. Corwin had very high unfavorable ratings and tried a crass political stunt that backfired, so she was probably a below-average candidate.
Still, a seat that would ordinarily be won by Republicans by about 12 points, but was instead won by the Democrats by 6 points, is a pretty big deviation from the norm. Odds are, like in the special election in Massachusetts last year, that some part of this had to do with factors that could carry over to the national level, while some other part had to do with circumstances specific to the district.
There is strong circumstantial evidence from the Siena poll, which came reasonably close to the actual outcome, that one of the more broadly applicable factors was Ms. Corwin’s association with Representative Paul Ryan’s budget, which Ms. Hochul criticized for its changes to Medicare.
One can also take a more post-modern view toward special elections, like the one advocated by The Washington Post’s Jonathan Bernstein: special elections matter to the extent that people think they matter. We may get a better indication of how much Republicans think this one matters based on the way they vote when Mr. Ryan’s budget comes to a vote in the Senate, possibly later this week.
Republicans could try to toe the party line - there are solid reasons, both from a strategic standpoint, and from a morale standpoint, for them to do so. But that doesn’t necessarily make the problem go away: Democrats are all but certain to make a major issue of Medicare and Mr. Ryan’s budget in every competitive Congressional election next year.
Looking at the bigger picture, my view is that the two biggest wild cards so far this year have both broken in favor of the Democrats: one being the risk the Republicans took by voting almost unanimously for Mr. Ryan’s budget, and the other being the killing of Osama bin Laden. Even in an election that mostly comes down to the economy - President Obama and the Democrats, make no mistake, remain extremely vulnerable there - these could be important factors at the margins. Pick up an extra 1 percent of the vote here, an extra 2 percent of the vote there, and your strategy starts to look a lot more robust: maybe O.K.-but-not-good economic growth is enough to get the Democrats elected, in addition to good-but-not-great growth.
Coupled with what is arguably a troubling start for the Republicans in the presidential campaign - a couple of electable candidatesaren’t running, while there are signs now that Sarah Palin may - the past six months have played out in a way that is toward the lower end of what the G.O.P. might reasonably have expected in November 2010.
That doesn’t mean there are any guarantees. Far from it: I don’t know that Mr. Obama is much more likely than a 2-to-1 favorite to retain the White House, nor that Democrats better than even money to take back the House. But both sets of odds have improved, in my view, from where I would have pegged them a few months ago.
GOP defiant and defensive after loss
Republicans woke up Wednesday and began rapidly reworking their message on Medicare in the wake of a stunning defeat in an upstate New York special election Tuesday night.
With another potential setback looming in September in a House election in Nevada, GOP leaders are trying to counter attack by playing up Medicare cuts Democrats embraced in last year’s health care reform law. They’re also attacking Democrats for not being willing to do anything about Medicare solvency. And, not surprisingly, the GOP is trying to write off Democrat Kathy Hochul’s upset victory as an anomaly.
Across the board, House Republicans were both defiant and defensive Wednesday, yet behind the scenes they are warning their rank-and-file lawmakers to be prepared to aggressively justify their support for House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program.
“The lesson for Republicans is that if you voted for the Ryan budget, you better be prepared to defend it,” a top House Republican aide said on Wednesday morning.
Another GOP insider added: “It doesn’t change anything except for serve as a reminder to our guys this isn’t 2010 and they are going to have to get their [act] together to win these kinds of skirmishes.”
Republicans in the 87-member GOP freshmen class - elected last November with on a wave of tea party support - said they won’t back off on Medicare, even if it costs them next year at the polls. One senior House Republican aide suggested backpedaling on the Ryan Medicare plan would be “worst possible move we can make.”
“I know that the other side is going to look at it from a political viewpoint and try to exploit it,” said Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), whose district is adjacent to the 26th in upstate New York. “I will tell you as a member of the freshmen class, we’re down here to deal with the problems [of the country], and we’re going to deal with the American people honestly… The issue is bigger than my seat or the reelection effort. It’s the critical issue of our time.”
Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), whose district has a similar makeup as the upstate New York district won by Hochul, said the Republican message should be that the “Democrats’ plan is bankruptcy.”
“We were sent here on November 2 to do the right thing,” Gardner responded when asked if he was nervous about the House GOP Medicare plan. “To cut spending and get our economy back on track.”
“We actually have leadership we are trying to pursue, leadership for our country,” Gardner added. “[Democrats] are refusing and rejoicing and refusing.”
Ryan himself took to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday to tell his side of the Medicare story. Ryan said that the GOP proposal doesn’t subsidize the wealthy as much and keeps benefits steady for people over 55.
“It works like a prescription drug benefit,” Ryan told host Joe Scarborough, who used to represent a conservative Florida district in the House.
Ryan added that President Barack Obama’s health care law “takes $500 billion from Medicare” to spend on the new law.
“That took you about two, two and a half minutes to explain.”
“That’s the problem,” Ryan responded.
Ryan, however, added that “with 15 or 18 months to go, we will get the facts out.”
For House Democrats, the New York victory - something they didn’t even believe could happen just two weeks ago - provides them with at least the outline for a plan to take back the House next year. Democratic outside groups, which pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into TV ads attacking Republican Jane Corwin, are already planning to use the same message in the Nevada special House election in September.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee send out a fund raising solicitation using Hochul’s victory.
“Democrats won despite a huge Karl Rove cash infusion because of a tough campaign, backed by enough grassroots support to offset their special interest money,” DSCC Chair Patty Murray (Wash.) wrote in an email to supporters. “This is a clear sign that momentum is on the Democratic side!”
Democrats, who had been using the slogan ‘Drive for 25!’ to describe their campaign to win the House back, have adopted a new one in the wake of Hochul’s win - ‘24 More!’”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Murray, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) are holding a news conference this afternoon to call on the GOP to “drop [their] misguided effort to end Medicare.”
Hochul’s upset win the New York 26th District special election also provided a boost to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who became the poster child for the Democratic debacle last year. Republicans tried to tie Hochul to Pelosi - one TV ad called her a “Pelosi puppet” - but unlike last cycle, it didn’t work. With third-party candidate Jack Davis siphoning off critical votes from Republican Jane Corwin, Hochul focused on Medicare and jobs, to the exclusion of all else.
Pelosi, for her part, never got any nearer to the race than New York City, where she raised money for Hochul. Instead, New York Democratic Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand were Hochul’s big draws. For Republicans, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (Texas) all made appearances in the district on Corwin’s behalf.
“We got shellacked in the 2010 cycle. We woke up depressed, despondent and doubtful,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel (N.Y.) told POLITICO Wednesday morning. Like Pelosi, Israel made no appearances in the district during the campaign.
“But this special election is a game changer. It puts Republicans on the defensive, it shows that Democrats are willing to fight in the toughest districts, and it shows that we can win in the toughest districts.”
The DCCC spent more than $265,000 on the race, while the NRCC spent roughly $425,000, according to operatives in both parties. More than a dozen outside groups poured in another $1.6 million. Such spending will likely be matched - or even bested - what will happen in the Nevada’s Second District race to replace Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.).
Democrats, who had been using the slogan ‘Drive for 25!’ to describe their campaign to win the House back, have adopted a new one in the wake of Hochul’s win - ‘24 More!’”
Steve Israel, DCCC Chair, Turns Sights To 97 Republicans And Unseating Paul Ryan
In the wake of Tuesday night's upset victory in upstate New York's special election, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is expanding his horizons, pinpointing nearly 100 House seats that could present favorable match-ups for Democrats in 2012. He is also refocusing attention on unseating House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).
"We have an excellent Democratic candidate named Rob Zerban who got into the race largely because he couldn't tolerate Paul Ryan's leadership on a plan to terminate Medicare, while funding tax cuts for big oil companies," DCCC Chair Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) told The Huffington Post in a late-night interview Tuesday. "So that's one district where the political landscape may change."
"In addition to that, there are 97 congressional districts currently represented by a Republican that are more moderate than New York 26," he added. "So there are 97 Republican members of Congress who are probably losing a lot of sleep tonight."
Israel's forecast of a move favorable political landscape underscored just how quickly both parties moved to spin Kathy Hochul's surprise win in New York's 26th District, a traditional Republican post. Republicans claimed the special election to be an aberration, blaming their loss on the presence of a third-party candidate and the bizarre circumstances that led to a special election being held in the first place. None of this would have happened had former Rep. Chris Lee (R-N.Y.) not sent half-naked pictures of himself to a woman in a flirtatious exchange over Craigslist.
Ryan, for his part, released a web video on Wednesday morning that insisted, "Washington has not been honest with you about Medicare" -- the primary issue in the NY26 election. Ryan later hit the cable circuit, telling MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that "having the ability to scare seniors is powerful."
"I personally don't think it will work," he added. "I think [voters] are going to reward leadership. I think they are going to reward people not for trying to scare people but for solving problems."
But the Democratic leadership made the factors that spurred Hochul's win difficult to ignore. Medicare -- more specifically, Ryan's plan to turn Medicare into a voucher system -- had been and effective spur for moving voters of all ages, demographics and ideological stripes in New York, Democrats said.
"I never feel sympathy for Newt Gingrich," Israel said, in reference to the criticism the former House Speaker endured for calling the Ryan plan "radical." "But I will say that when somebody on the far right calls House Republicans too far to the right, we knew we were on to something."
With all but four House Republicans having voted for Ryan's plan, Democrats said the GOP's House majority, not to mention Ryan's own seat, was in a bit more peril than previously imagined.
"[Hochul's win] shows how vulnerable every single Republican in Wisconsin is, but especially Paul Ryan himself," said Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Mike Tate.
Targeting Republicans on Medicare and the Ryan budget will only work for Democrats if they are united in insisting that drastic Medicare reform remains off the table. But on Tuesday night there was already concern that the White House wasn't willing to play politics with the entitlement program. A statement from the president on Hochul's victory highlighted their shared belief in the "need to create jobs, grow our economy, and reduce the deficit." There was no mention of Medicare, and administration officials downplayed its significance in the special election.
Yet Israel was eager to present a united front in defending Medicare's fundamental structure.
"We always said we would have constructive discussions on strengthening Medicare, improving Medicare and reforming Medicare. But ending Medicare is non-negotiable," he said. "Our position has been consistent and it was the position validated by voters in the special election in New York."
MEANWHILE AT THE LAIR OF THE BIGGEST DOUCHEBAG EVER TO EXIST:
Rob Woodall Won't Give Up Government Health Care 'Because It's Free' (VIDEO)
Moments after preaching extreme self-reliance to one of his constituents, a Georgia Republican told a gathering in his district that he will continue to rely on government-subsidized health care "because it's free."
Freshman Rep. Rob Woodall, who served as chief of staff to his predecessor, made national news earlier this week for comments he made, captured on video by Patch.com, to a retired constituent who told him her company does not provide retiree benefits.
"Hear yourself, ma'am. Hear yourself," Woodall told the woman. "You want the government to take care of you, because your employer decided not to take care of you. My question is, 'When do I decide I'm
The exchange continued. In video provided to HuffPost by another constituent, Woodall was asked why -- if he believes in such self reliance -- he doesn't forgo his government health care plan.
"I have a question about taking care of you. You have government subsidized health care, but you are not obligated to take that if you don't want to. Why aren't you going out on the fee market in the state where you're a resident and buy your own health care? Be an example," said a constituent in the new video.
"Your question is," Woodall responded, "my government's willing to give me lots and lots of stuff for free and why don't I take it?"
The woman followed up. "Why aren't you leading by example, and go and get it in a single-subscriber plan, like you want everybody else to have, because you want to end employer-sponsored health plans and government-sponsored health plans. You said so in a letter to me, that your goal is to get rid of the employer-sponsored health care [system]. So why aren't you leading by example and go out yourself, decline the government health plan and go to Blue Cross/Blue Shield or whoever, and get one for yourself and see how tough it is," she said. "You don't have any pre-existing conditions, I guess, you haven't had any life-threatening illnesses like I had last year."
Woodall responded that "this is why it's good to have these conversations, because there's some bad information out there."
But his constituent presses him further. "Answer the question: Why haven't you gone out and got it?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought I did. It's because it's free. It's because it's free," he said. "The same reason I went out to Walgreen's and bought ActivOn and I don't have any arthritis pain: Because it's free. Folks, if you give people things for free, don't blame them for taking them." (for those who dont know, its not free, its paid by the tax payers. US!)
On Tuesday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) responded to the initial Woodall video by telling the Washington Post that the congressman "lays bare" the GOP approach to health care. "No matter how hard you've worked your whole life, no matter how severe your medical hardship, the Republican motto is clear: You're on your own. This lays bare the ideology behind their goal of ending of Medicare as we know it," he said.
Democrats are seizing on Woodall's comments. The Democratic National Committee made sure that national reporters were aware of his remarks on Tuesday.
While Woodall is committed to accepting coverage as long as taxpayers provide it, HuffPost asked him if he thinks as a matter of policy members of Congress should not get health care benefits. "Absolutely, federal health care options in Congress should mirror those offered in the private sector," said Woodall in an e-mailed response to questions from HuffPost. "If these options are not available in the private sector, then folks working for the federal government should not have them either. There are bills being discussed to raise the amount that Members of Congress pay in to their benefits and I support these pieces of legislation. You might also be interested to know--and if you watched the entire Town Hall video you would have heard this as well--that I chose the cheapest health care plan available to Members of Congress--meaning that this is the plan in which the least amount of taxpayer money will be on the line for my health benefits."
HuffPost asked what Woodall would say to a person 54 or under who didn't have a private or government retirement health care plan, and was left to search the market with a voucher covering only a portion of costs if Paul Ryan's Medicare plan was enacted.
"The House-passed FY2012 Budget Resolution does two very important things: it ensures that seniors 55 and older will continue to receive the same Medicare benefits they received in 2010, and it ensures Medicare for individuals under age 55 by saving Medicare from insolvency and providing, for the first time, a real choice for the future," he said.
Six Months After Midterm Disaster, Hopeful Signs for Democrats
Here’s what I wrote two weeks ago about the special election in New York’s 26th Congressional District, which was won by the Democrat Kathy Hochul Tuesday night:
[If] Ms. Hochul can get her vote up into the mid-to-high 40s - as the Democratic candidates did in 2006 and 2008 while facing only one viable opponent instead of two - then the Democrats will be entitled to a round of beer; it will be one small sign (though just one) that the electoral environment has moved toward what it was in stronger Democratic years.
Ms. Hochul, with most of the vote counted, has 48 percent of the total, so she has met this threshold. The rest of the vote was split among the Republican, Jane Corwin, with 42 percent, the the Tea Party candidate, Jack Davis, with 9 percent, and the Green Party’s Ian Murphy, with 1 percent.
Suppose that Mr. Davis and Mr. Murphy were not running, and that this were a true two-way race between Ms. Hochul and Ms. Corwin. If Ms. Corwin had won all of Mr. Davis’s vote (and Ms. Hochul won all of Mr. Murphy’s vote), she would have won 51-49.
That would still qualify as a bad night for the Republicans, however. Based on the way that the district votes in presidential elections, it is 6 percentage points more Republican than the country as a whole. That means, roughly speaking, that in a neutral political environment with average candidates, Ms. Corwin would have won 56 percent of the vote and Ms. Hochul 44 percent - a 12-point victory. A 2-point win instead, therefore, would have spoken to a relatively poor political environment for the Republicans.
Nor is it likely that Ms. Corwin would in fact have won all of Mr. Davis’s votes. He ran in the district as a Democrat in 2006, and polls suggested that his voters leaned Republican by roughly a 2-1 margin, but not more than that. If you had split his vote 2-1 in favor of Ms. Corwin, the results would have been Ms. Hochul 51 percent, and Ms. Corwin 48 percent.
So Republicans can’t really pin the blame for this result on Mr. Davis. They do, however, have a couple of more credible arguments.
First, any one special election probably does not have all that much predictive power. Once there are several special elections, they may begin to mean something, but one taken in isolation is a rather fuzzy indicator.
Second, Ms. Corwin had very high unfavorable ratings and tried a crass political stunt that backfired, so she was probably a below-average candidate.
Still, a seat that would ordinarily be won by Republicans by about 12 points, but was instead won by the Democrats by 6 points, is a pretty big deviation from the norm. Odds are, like in the special election in Massachusetts last year, that some part of this had to do with factors that could carry over to the national level, while some other part had to do with circumstances specific to the district.
There is strong circumstantial evidence from the Siena poll, which came reasonably close to the actual outcome, that one of the more broadly applicable factors was Ms. Corwin’s association with Representative Paul Ryan’s budget, which Ms. Hochul criticized for its changes to Medicare.
One can also take a more post-modern view toward special elections, like the one advocated by The Washington Post’s Jonathan Bernstein: special elections matter to the extent that people think they matter. We may get a better indication of how much Republicans think this one matters based on the way they vote when Mr. Ryan’s budget comes to a vote in the Senate, possibly later this week.
Republicans could try to toe the party line - there are solid reasons, both from a strategic standpoint, and from a morale standpoint, for them to do so. But that doesn’t necessarily make the problem go away: Democrats are all but certain to make a major issue of Medicare and Mr. Ryan’s budget in every competitive Congressional election next year.
Looking at the bigger picture, my view is that the two biggest wild cards so far this year have both broken in favor of the Democrats: one being the risk the Republicans took by voting almost unanimously for Mr. Ryan’s budget, and the other being the killing of Osama bin Laden. Even in an election that mostly comes down to the economy - President Obama and the Democrats, make no mistake, remain extremely vulnerable there - these could be important factors at the margins. Pick up an extra 1 percent of the vote here, an extra 2 percent of the vote there, and your strategy starts to look a lot more robust: maybe O.K.-but-not-good economic growth is enough to get the Democrats elected, in addition to good-but-not-great growth.
Coupled with what is arguably a troubling start for the Republicans in the presidential campaign - a couple of electable candidatesaren’t running, while there are signs now that Sarah Palin may - the past six months have played out in a way that is toward the lower end of what the G.O.P. might reasonably have expected in November 2010.
That doesn’t mean there are any guarantees. Far from it: I don’t know that Mr. Obama is much more likely than a 2-to-1 favorite to retain the White House, nor that Democrats better than even money to take back the House. But both sets of odds have improved, in my view, from where I would have pegged them a few months ago.
GOP defiant and defensive after loss
Republicans woke up Wednesday and began rapidly reworking their message on Medicare in the wake of a stunning defeat in an upstate New York special election Tuesday night.
With another potential setback looming in September in a House election in Nevada, GOP leaders are trying to counter attack by playing up Medicare cuts Democrats embraced in last year’s health care reform law. They’re also attacking Democrats for not being willing to do anything about Medicare solvency. And, not surprisingly, the GOP is trying to write off Democrat Kathy Hochul’s upset victory as an anomaly.
Across the board, House Republicans were both defiant and defensive Wednesday, yet behind the scenes they are warning their rank-and-file lawmakers to be prepared to aggressively justify their support for House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program.
“The lesson for Republicans is that if you voted for the Ryan budget, you better be prepared to defend it,” a top House Republican aide said on Wednesday morning.
Another GOP insider added: “It doesn’t change anything except for serve as a reminder to our guys this isn’t 2010 and they are going to have to get their [act] together to win these kinds of skirmishes.”
Republicans in the 87-member GOP freshmen class - elected last November with on a wave of tea party support - said they won’t back off on Medicare, even if it costs them next year at the polls. One senior House Republican aide suggested backpedaling on the Ryan Medicare plan would be “worst possible move we can make.”
“I know that the other side is going to look at it from a political viewpoint and try to exploit it,” said Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), whose district is adjacent to the 26th in upstate New York. “I will tell you as a member of the freshmen class, we’re down here to deal with the problems [of the country], and we’re going to deal with the American people honestly… The issue is bigger than my seat or the reelection effort. It’s the critical issue of our time.”
Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), whose district has a similar makeup as the upstate New York district won by Hochul, said the Republican message should be that the “Democrats’ plan is bankruptcy.”
“We were sent here on November 2 to do the right thing,” Gardner responded when asked if he was nervous about the House GOP Medicare plan. “To cut spending and get our economy back on track.”
“We actually have leadership we are trying to pursue, leadership for our country,” Gardner added. “[Democrats] are refusing and rejoicing and refusing.”
Ryan himself took to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday to tell his side of the Medicare story. Ryan said that the GOP proposal doesn’t subsidize the wealthy as much and keeps benefits steady for people over 55.
“It works like a prescription drug benefit,” Ryan told host Joe Scarborough, who used to represent a conservative Florida district in the House.
Ryan added that President Barack Obama’s health care law “takes $500 billion from Medicare” to spend on the new law.
“That took you about two, two and a half minutes to explain.”
“That’s the problem,” Ryan responded.
Ryan, however, added that “with 15 or 18 months to go, we will get the facts out.”
For House Democrats, the New York victory - something they didn’t even believe could happen just two weeks ago - provides them with at least the outline for a plan to take back the House next year. Democratic outside groups, which pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into TV ads attacking Republican Jane Corwin, are already planning to use the same message in the Nevada special House election in September.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee send out a fund raising solicitation using Hochul’s victory.
“Democrats won despite a huge Karl Rove cash infusion because of a tough campaign, backed by enough grassroots support to offset their special interest money,” DSCC Chair Patty Murray (Wash.) wrote in an email to supporters. “This is a clear sign that momentum is on the Democratic side!”
Democrats, who had been using the slogan ‘Drive for 25!’ to describe their campaign to win the House back, have adopted a new one in the wake of Hochul’s win - ‘24 More!’”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Murray, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) are holding a news conference this afternoon to call on the GOP to “drop [their] misguided effort to end Medicare.”
Hochul’s upset win the New York 26th District special election also provided a boost to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who became the poster child for the Democratic debacle last year. Republicans tried to tie Hochul to Pelosi - one TV ad called her a “Pelosi puppet” - but unlike last cycle, it didn’t work. With third-party candidate Jack Davis siphoning off critical votes from Republican Jane Corwin, Hochul focused on Medicare and jobs, to the exclusion of all else.
Pelosi, for her part, never got any nearer to the race than New York City, where she raised money for Hochul. Instead, New York Democratic Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand were Hochul’s big draws. For Republicans, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (Texas) all made appearances in the district on Corwin’s behalf.
“We got shellacked in the 2010 cycle. We woke up depressed, despondent and doubtful,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel (N.Y.) told POLITICO Wednesday morning. Like Pelosi, Israel made no appearances in the district during the campaign.
“But this special election is a game changer. It puts Republicans on the defensive, it shows that Democrats are willing to fight in the toughest districts, and it shows that we can win in the toughest districts.”
The DCCC spent more than $265,000 on the race, while the NRCC spent roughly $425,000, according to operatives in both parties. More than a dozen outside groups poured in another $1.6 million. Such spending will likely be matched - or even bested - what will happen in the Nevada’s Second District race to replace Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.).
Democrats, who had been using the slogan ‘Drive for 25!’ to describe their campaign to win the House back, have adopted a new one in the wake of Hochul’s win - ‘24 More!’”
Steve Israel, DCCC Chair, Turns Sights To 97 Republicans And Unseating Paul Ryan
In the wake of Tuesday night's upset victory in upstate New York's special election, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is expanding his horizons, pinpointing nearly 100 House seats that could present favorable match-ups for Democrats in 2012. He is also refocusing attention on unseating House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).
"We have an excellent Democratic candidate named Rob Zerban who got into the race largely because he couldn't tolerate Paul Ryan's leadership on a plan to terminate Medicare, while funding tax cuts for big oil companies," DCCC Chair Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) told The Huffington Post in a late-night interview Tuesday. "So that's one district where the political landscape may change."
"In addition to that, there are 97 congressional districts currently represented by a Republican that are more moderate than New York 26," he added. "So there are 97 Republican members of Congress who are probably losing a lot of sleep tonight."
Israel's forecast of a move favorable political landscape underscored just how quickly both parties moved to spin Kathy Hochul's surprise win in New York's 26th District, a traditional Republican post. Republicans claimed the special election to be an aberration, blaming their loss on the presence of a third-party candidate and the bizarre circumstances that led to a special election being held in the first place. None of this would have happened had former Rep. Chris Lee (R-N.Y.) not sent half-naked pictures of himself to a woman in a flirtatious exchange over Craigslist.
Ryan, for his part, released a web video on Wednesday morning that insisted, "Washington has not been honest with you about Medicare" -- the primary issue in the NY26 election. Ryan later hit the cable circuit, telling MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that "having the ability to scare seniors is powerful."
"I personally don't think it will work," he added. "I think [voters] are going to reward leadership. I think they are going to reward people not for trying to scare people but for solving problems."
But the Democratic leadership made the factors that spurred Hochul's win difficult to ignore. Medicare -- more specifically, Ryan's plan to turn Medicare into a voucher system -- had been and effective spur for moving voters of all ages, demographics and ideological stripes in New York, Democrats said.
"I never feel sympathy for Newt Gingrich," Israel said, in reference to the criticism the former House Speaker endured for calling the Ryan plan "radical." "But I will say that when somebody on the far right calls House Republicans too far to the right, we knew we were on to something."
With all but four House Republicans having voted for Ryan's plan, Democrats said the GOP's House majority, not to mention Ryan's own seat, was in a bit more peril than previously imagined.
"[Hochul's win] shows how vulnerable every single Republican in Wisconsin is, but especially Paul Ryan himself," said Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Mike Tate.
Targeting Republicans on Medicare and the Ryan budget will only work for Democrats if they are united in insisting that drastic Medicare reform remains off the table. But on Tuesday night there was already concern that the White House wasn't willing to play politics with the entitlement program. A statement from the president on Hochul's victory highlighted their shared belief in the "need to create jobs, grow our economy, and reduce the deficit." There was no mention of Medicare, and administration officials downplayed its significance in the special election.
Yet Israel was eager to present a united front in defending Medicare's fundamental structure.
"We always said we would have constructive discussions on strengthening Medicare, improving Medicare and reforming Medicare. But ending Medicare is non-negotiable," he said. "Our position has been consistent and it was the position validated by voters in the special election in New York."
Click to viewMEANWHILE AT THE LAIR OF THE BIGGEST DOUCHEBAG EVER TO EXIST:
Rob Woodall Won't Give Up Government Health Care 'Because It's Free' (VIDEO)
Moments after preaching extreme self-reliance to one of his constituents, a Georgia Republican told a gathering in his district that he will continue to rely on government-subsidized health care "because it's free."
Freshman Rep. Rob Woodall, who served as chief of staff to his predecessor, made national news earlier this week for comments he made, captured on video by Patch.com, to a retired constituent who told him her company does not provide retiree benefits.
"Hear yourself, ma'am. Hear yourself," Woodall told the woman. "You want the government to take care of you, because your employer decided not to take care of you. My question is, 'When do I decide I'm
The exchange continued. In video provided to HuffPost by another constituent, Woodall was asked why -- if he believes in such self reliance -- he doesn't forgo his government health care plan.
"I have a question about taking care of you. You have government subsidized health care, but you are not obligated to take that if you don't want to. Why aren't you going out on the fee market in the state where you're a resident and buy your own health care? Be an example," said a constituent in the new video.
"Your question is," Woodall responded, "my government's willing to give me lots and lots of stuff for free and why don't I take it?"
The woman followed up. "Why aren't you leading by example, and go and get it in a single-subscriber plan, like you want everybody else to have, because you want to end employer-sponsored health plans and government-sponsored health plans. You said so in a letter to me, that your goal is to get rid of the employer-sponsored health care [system]. So why aren't you leading by example and go out yourself, decline the government health plan and go to Blue Cross/Blue Shield or whoever, and get one for yourself and see how tough it is," she said. "You don't have any pre-existing conditions, I guess, you haven't had any life-threatening illnesses like I had last year."
Woodall responded that "this is why it's good to have these conversations, because there's some bad information out there."
But his constituent presses him further. "Answer the question: Why haven't you gone out and got it?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought I did. It's because it's free. It's because it's free," he said. "The same reason I went out to Walgreen's and bought ActivOn and I don't have any arthritis pain: Because it's free. Folks, if you give people things for free, don't blame them for taking them." (for those who dont know, its not free, its paid by the tax payers. US!)
On Tuesday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) responded to the initial Woodall video by telling the Washington Post that the congressman "lays bare" the GOP approach to health care. "No matter how hard you've worked your whole life, no matter how severe your medical hardship, the Republican motto is clear: You're on your own. This lays bare the ideology behind their goal of ending of Medicare as we know it," he said.
Democrats are seizing on Woodall's comments. The Democratic National Committee made sure that national reporters were aware of his remarks on Tuesday.
While Woodall is committed to accepting coverage as long as taxpayers provide it, HuffPost asked him if he thinks as a matter of policy members of Congress should not get health care benefits. "Absolutely, federal health care options in Congress should mirror those offered in the private sector," said Woodall in an e-mailed response to questions from HuffPost. "If these options are not available in the private sector, then folks working for the federal government should not have them either. There are bills being discussed to raise the amount that Members of Congress pay in to their benefits and I support these pieces of legislation. You might also be interested to know--and if you watched the entire Town Hall video you would have heard this as well--that I chose the cheapest health care plan available to Members of Congress--meaning that this is the plan in which the least amount of taxpayer money will be on the line for my health benefits."
HuffPost asked what Woodall would say to a person 54 or under who didn't have a private or government retirement health care plan, and was left to search the market with a voucher covering only a portion of costs if Paul Ryan's Medicare plan was enacted.
"The House-passed FY2012 Budget Resolution does two very important things: it ensures that seniors 55 and older will continue to receive the same Medicare benefits they received in 2010, and it ensures Medicare for individuals under age 55 by saving Medicare from insolvency and providing, for the first time, a real choice for the future," he said.