Tigerlure said: I'll keep my reply short and relevant to OP. I think Paul Ryan is a smart guy. However, I think he also costs Romney Florida, and by consequence, the election.
If the Democrat campaign can successfully depict Ryan as a "killer of seniors", and "destorying their security", and majority of voters in florida believe that then yes Romney-Ryan will lose it for sure.
Funny part is Paul Ryan's mother is actually a senior aged 78 living in Florida on Medicare. So its still pretty hard to paint him as someone who "could care less about the elderly." Interesting enough the plan he was advocating in congress made no changes to medicare for those who are aged 55 and older. People younger than that then get more choices on their future benefits/securities instead of automatically forced into the government medicare plan.
It will be interesting to watch what happens.
I think it's been well documented that Ryan's bill is unpopular to the general electorate. I think it's hard to argue that his plan is serious when it does balance the budget until around 2030 at the earliest. Imagine how much his vouchers will be worth then due to rising healthcare costs. I won't say he is wrong for attempting to deal with the problem. But surely we can find a more serious and realistic approach to strengthen Medicare for the future.
I don't know, Erksine Bowles seems to like it... and he was Bill Clintons Chief of Staff. (So a Democrat.)
I'd hardly call Ryan straightfoward when both he and Romney are accusing Obama of cutting Medicare, while maintaining the same cuts in Ryan's own budget.
I beleive Ryan was accusing him of being twofaced for accusing him of wanting to cut medicare, when Obama himself cut Medicare.
Which brings up an interseting question is... why haven't you turned that round? Afterall, Obama is accusing Paul Ryan of cutting Medicare, when he himself already did cut it.
I agree there should be a better plan then the Paul Ryan plan to cut the deficit.
The only problem is... nobody has a better plan.
There was Simpson-Bowles, but Obama disregarded it... and his counter plan was so inept, not even Erksine could get behind it.
And i mean, to show that he hasn't suddenly just jumped the Democratic band wagon...
So it's not like he still isn't steadly democratic.
He just recognizes that Paul Ryan so far is the only one to have come out with a solution outside of the Simpson Bowles commission, and is the only one taking the deficit serious... and because HE is taking it serious, for once he's not in "Rally behind the camp" mode.
It's often why I tend to defend republican candidates here, even though I've never actually voted for a Republican, and Mitt Romney is about last on my list of candidates I plan to vote for.
Republicans are adressing serious issues, that democrats want to ignore or even worse, make light of.
