"Missing the Medicare forest for the trees" By Steve Benen at the Maddow Blog

[applegrove]

Missing the Medicare forest for the trees

By Steve Benen at the Maddow Blog

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/17/13335003-missing-the-medicare-forest-for-the-trees#.UC5Sk0Xr3ao.reddit

"SNIP..........................................

Why would voters expect conservative Republicans to be the trusted champions of socialized medicine?

As a political matter, I understand exactly what Romney/Ryan is trying to do. As Greg Sargent explained this morning, "It's important, though, to get at the true nature of the Romney strategy here. It isn't about drawing an actual policy contrast with the Obama campaign. It's about obfuscatingthe actual policy differences between the two candidates over the program."

That's exactly right. The Republican plan to deal with the intense unpopularity of the Romney/Ryan plan is to simply muddy the waters -- both sides are accusing the other side of being against Medicare; the media doesn't like separating fact from fiction; and voters, even well-intentioned folks who want to know the truth, aren't quite sure what to believe. For all I know, this obfuscation strategy might actually work.

But while assorted hacks may find partisan value in falsely accusing Obama of "robbing Granny's health care," does that make any sense on a conceptual level? Since when do Republicans look at President Obama and think he's too conservative when it comes to socialized medicine?

..............................................SNIP"