Short and sweet: new poll. 60/40. Key states.
After more than a week of frenzied campaigning on the issue, Medicare ranks as the third-most crucial issue to likely voters in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin — behind the economy and health care, according to new Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News polls of the three swing states. The Republican proposal to retool the program a decade from now is widely disliked. …NYT
We voters have done the math! We figured it out for ourselves!
Roughly 6 in 10 likely voters in each state want Medicare to continue providing health insurance to older Americans the way it does today; fewer than a third of those polled said Medicare should be changed in the future to a system in which the government gives the elderly fixed amounts of money to buy health insurance or Medicare insurance, as Mr. Romney has proposed. And Medicare is widely seen as a good value: about three-quarters of the likely voters in each state said the benefits of Medicare are worth the cost to taxpayers. …NYT
We’ve realized, finally!, that Ryan’s proposals are a scam.
“On Medicare, I don’t like the Paul Ryan plan,” said Beverly McLaren, 72, an independent from St. Petersburg, Fla., who said in a follow-up interview that Medicare worked well for her and that she planned to vote to re-elect Mr. Obama. “I can’t see how it will help at all, and we’ll have more out-of-pocket expenses, and I’m not really clear how it will work.” …NYT
Star-Ledger editors point out the hard truth: Romney isn’t leading his party, as he should. He’s lamely following them, That’s what his choice of Paul Ryan shows.
It is another disturbing signal that Romney is not likely to heave his party toward the middle, as Bill Clinton did with the Democrats in 1992. Romney is not challenging the Sister Souljahs of his party; he is placating them at nearly every turn.
His career shows he is not a real moderate, or a real conservative. He is an opportunist and has always moved in the direction the tide pushes him.So don’t expect Romney to govern as he did in Massachusetts.
Republicans are marching to the right, and Romney is likely to float with the tide again. …Star-Ledger
Float with the tide! Whew! Now back to whether Hurricane Isaac will wipe out the entire Republican party, carried away by God’s punishing winds and tides, so to speak.
As the storm approached, military authorities at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, canceled several days of pretrial hearings in the case of five prisoners charged in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. They also planned to evacuate about 200 people, including legal teams and relatives of Sept. 11 victims. …CBS News