We all know how great Republicans are at coming up with misleading names for things. "Clear Skies Initiative." "PATRIOT Act." "Death tax." Hell, even "death panels." It might be the only thing Republican politicians are good at! And no one who reads this blog should need to be reminded how bad Democrats are at messaging. Most Democrats in Congress would be hard-pressed to message their way out of a paper bag. I'm not saying they wouldn't ultimately manage. But it'd be a struggle.
This is a problem because the Beltway media's very own Wonder-Boy, Paul Ryan, has once again released a "very serious" Medicare demolition proposal, not all that different from the one he released last year. The one that helped Democrats pick up a solid-GOP seat in upstate New York by charging that the Ryan plan would "kill Medicare." It's a good line, both effective and true. And we could spend the rest of the election season repeating it and tagging the Republican representatives who voted for it last year (the entire caucus, minus 5 semi-sane members). White seniors, who are almost the only base the GOP has left, will not take a threat to Medicare lightly, so we could be looking at some deep-red seats flipping blue. In short, absent a stalling of the recovery or other major crisis, the Ryan plan could make 2012 that most unlikely of things, a Democratic landslide.
But of course, there's a catch. Follow me below the fold for more on the catch and how chocolate cake could be just what the doctor ordered.
The "catch" is that the Beltway media is heavily-invested in promoting this plan. Virtually all of the lemmings followed Ryan off the "killing Medicare" cliff last year. It won the coveted endorsement of "very serious" from the ever-so-serious doyens of DC who haven't found an irresponsible GOP plan they couldn't shill for. So Politifact gave the award for "Lie of the year" for 2011 to Democrats for claiming that the Ryan plan would "end Medicare." Their reasoning: "They used harsh terms such as 'end' and 'kill' when the program would still exist, although in a privatized system." This is what passes for logic among "very-serious" people. Republicans aren't trying to kill Medicare, they're just changing it from a guaranteed-benefit system for current and future seniors to a voucherized/capped-subsidy system all Americans under 55 will have no choice but to enroll in! Just like Republicans aren't trying to pollute our air or take away our civil liberties or give tax cuts to millionaires...
So Democrats can claim, accurately, that both of the Ryan plans plus "Ryan-Wyden" would "end Medicare." But Republicans and the major media outlets will say that Democrats are "lying" or "exaggerating" (despite never working up the courage to call the previous administration on its many lies and exaggerations). Meaning this will likely devolve into the media's favorite game "he-said, she-said."
Unless.... we come up with a good response. Republicans are doing a bait-and-switch, claiming to protect "Medicare" while actually dismantling it. Here's how a Democrat could call them on it:
"Republicans voted to kill Medicare. Now they claim that's not what they did, that their plan gets rid of Medicare as we know it and replaces it with something else, but don't worry, they say, it's still going to be called Medicare! Everything else will change, but it'll keep the name! But if you went into a restaurant and ordered a slice of chocolate cake off the menu, and the server came back with a slice of carot cake, you'd say that's not what you ordered. And if the server told you that the old chocolate cake was no longer available and that carot cake had been renamed "chocolate cake," you'd be outraged! Republicans are trying to get you to accept carot cake instead of chocolate, privatization instead of Medicare. But you're too smart for that/that dog won't hunt/[insert regional colloquialism here]."
What do you guys think? Regional variants could be used instead of chocolate cake vs carot cake, such as grits vs oatmeal, clam chowder vs cream-of-mushroom soup, sourdough bread vs WonderBread. The important thing is to defend characterizing the Ryan plan as "ending Medicare," and the only way to do that is to bring home to voters that the GOP is pulling a bait-and-switch. It needs to be made so simple that not only can a low-information voter understand it, but a caveman the Washington press corps can too. With proper messaging, linking the Ryan plan to every representative who voted for it and to Mitt Romney (who has supported both versions), Democrats could could retake the House, hold back the Tea Party hordes in the Senate, and keep the White House. The Republican party has baked this poison-laced cake, it's up to us to make sure they eat it in November.