Medicare, the GOP albatross

While the rest of the world sits back and watches the GOP presidential candidates battling it out, Sarah Palin was traveling, visiting New York and Donald Trump and then heading to New Jersey and, of all places — surprise, surprise — ending up in New Hampshire.

Palin has yet to declare her candidacy, but both Mitt Romney and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty have formally declared, to a rather muted response. In the meantime, Rudy Giuliani is sniffing around to determine if he will make another attempt.

But alas, all this may be for naught, as Republican lawmakers may already have handed President Obama the 2012 election.

On May 25, the Republican Party suffered a devastating special-election defeat in New York’s 26th Congressional District. The district, which includes the Buffalo suburbs, has been under Republican control for the past four decades.

Democratic candidate Kathy Hochul was certain to be a loser to Republican Assemblywoman Jane Corwin. Then Hochul’s poll numbers began to surge as Democratic committees began releasing a series of ads attacking U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan, already passed by the Republican-controlled House. In the end, Hochul used the Democrats’ scare tactics to beat Corwin, 47 percent to 43 percent.

The Democrats created ads portraying Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, pushing a struggling grandmother off a cliff. Democrats are claiming that Ryan’s budget bill will effectively end Medicare. While this depiction is not completely accurate, it was extremely effective in frightening Americans.

The problem is that Republicans didn’t educate the public properly before voting on the bill. The GOP didn’t publicize that the budget plan doesn’t affect anyone over age 55, or that it will repeal Obama’s controversial Affordable Care Act.

Due to lack of explanation, the “Ryan budget” has turned into a public relations nightmare. The thought of Medicare being put to an end has people petrified, and cost the Republican Party the New York congressional seat and possibly other future elections.