Almost the entire Democratic Party theme for the 2012 elections at every level is that evil Republicans want to destroy “Medicare as we know it,” whereas Democrats want to save the program by raising taxes on the “rich.”
As Michael Alan documented here, groups behind the “Mediscare” campaign already have started running advertisements against the Ryan plan to reform Medicare. This video of a Paul Ryan-like figure throwing Grandma off a cliff epitomizes the Democratic Party campaign theme:
Yet at the press conference yesterday, Obama made an admission which directly undermines the Democratic campaign theme, and in fact reveals Democrats who want no changes to Medicare to be the real threat:
And what I’ve tried to explain to them [Democrats] is, number one, if you look at the numbers, then Medicare in particular will run out of money and we will not be able to sustain that program no matter how much taxes go up. I mean, it’s not an option for us to just sit by and do nothing.
What hurts Democrats the most is not even the part of the statement about Medicare running out of money, it’s the part “no matter how much taxes go up.” But isn’t that the Democratic plan, to raise taxes on the rich to save Medicare and other entitlements?
So, according to Obama, the Democratic plan to save Medicare will not work no matter how much taxes are raised. That is a message which will resonate.
Democrats are the party of Medicare failure. Just ask Obama.
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Comments
The Republicans should counter by running the same exact ad … only, at the end, Grandma suddenly reappears at the bottom of the screen, hugged closely by Paul Ryan with one arm as he uses his other arm to scale the cliff and bring Grandma back to safety … setting her down gently and checking to make sure she’s OK before running off to track down the Democratic villains who are trying to scare Grandma to death.
LukeHandCool (who can just picture an indignant Matt Damon, the same Matt Damon who gullibly fell for the internet urban myth that Sarah Palin believed Dinosaurs were on the earth a few thousand years ago, expressing his outrage to an interviewer about what he believed to be real footage of a now-common “Grandma-dumping event” … unlike the fictional stonings and beheadings that wingnuts believe occur in Islamist regions).
What happened to the Herman Cain tag in LI? Why I ask is the graphic I dug up on 2012 candidates, unfortunately it was at 538 – http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/a-graphical-overview-of-the-2012-republican-field/?hp
Might be off-topic but Cain was a match with me even including both his AND the comedic Cain putdown of IRS Tax Code on a box of Cereal. Obamacare ‘The Bill” was [depending on which of the multiple versions was signed] OVER 2,000 Pages making it a twenty-first century “Kansas-Nebraska Act”….
Hahaha, that political ad is just stupidly ridiculous. Seems more like a skit from Saturday Night Live than a political ad… oh wait… there isn’t any difference anymore is there?
@VetHusbandFather – the Democrats are using SNL for their ideas now…did you miss the Ask Jimmy Carter aka #AskObama town hall?
(I believe I might actually have seen something almost identical to that ad at one time on SNL……but I’ll have to look for a link to see if I am correct….)
I also like @LukeHandCool’s idea, but with a twist. What I would have is the Paul Ryan super-hero bringing Granny up that hill, with the frozen, dumb-struck Dem dressed up as Ryan, face exposed, staring down in disbelief. That face would be…..ObamaCare. Then morph the face into Pelosi’s face (with her voice in the background stating one of her famous lies about ObamaCare), Reid’s mug (with vocal background, using a choice Reid’s lie), and finally Obama’s (again, vocal background, but one of Obama’s many HCR lies).
Maybe not doable in a 30 second spot…..but someone good, creative, skilled at the craft of KISS, marketing, and video editing could do it. Turn their own poison against them, using the TRUTH.
Because the TRUTH IS Obama, Reid, and Pelosi – the faces of ObamaCare – have already destroyed Medicare, and our senior’s will ALL suffer due to the immediate cuts, the taxes, the payment caps, the death panels. But they haven’t heard that TRUTH.
Tell them. Now.
Republicans need to work on their messaging. How to fight; yes, you need good defense, but then go on offense, drive the points home. Succinctly. Visually. Using their own words against them. Hoist them on their own petard.
Taking this ad and turning it back at them would be a good start.
Don’t worry, tomorrow Obama will be saying the exact opposite of what he said today, and that will have been his position all along, just like the one before that, and the one before that, and the one before that…
I get my news from http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2011/06/open-thread-1057.html …..J/K, but I did finally find one great feature out of the government protection rackets, the “Parental Porn lock” on the TV keeps me from blowing gaskets watching the NBC-CBS-ABC propaganda networks! I like any of the candidates in the 538 graphic lower right quadrant…http://www.538host.com/gopchart.png
@DINORightMarie
LOL! As soon as I hit the submit button I thought, I should’ve had Paul Ryan tackle the evil, scaremongering Dem, hold “him” down, and, a la Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, tear off the evildoer’s Paul Ryan mask to reveal Nancy Pelosi.
[…] The O throws Dem Mediscare tactic under the bus […]