MARTHA RADDATZ: Good evening, and welcome to the first and only vice presidential debate of 2012, sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. I’m Martha Raddatz of ABC News, and I am honored to moderate this debate between two men who have dedicated much of their lives to public service.
Tonight’s debate is divided between domestic and foreign policy issues.
And I’m going to move back and forth between foreign and domestic since that is what a vice president or president would have to do.
We will have nine different segments. At the beginning of each segment, I will ask both candidates a question, and they will each have two minutes to answer. Then I will encourage a discussion between the candidates with follow-up questions. By coin toss, it has been determined that Vice President Biden will be first to answer the opening question.
As I write, the only thing lacking is official confirmation by the Romney campaign that Mittens will adopt young Paul Ryan as his running mate. It would appear as though Mittens’ disaster-laden campaign of the past few weeks has prompted his billionaires to lay down the law and require Ryan as the Very Serious Running Mate.
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Paul Ryan is a disaster, but that doesn’t mean the Villagers won’t treat him as a Very Serious VP Candidate Who Will Give Mittens A Much-Needed Bump. They will treat him that way. Meanwhile, the Very Serious conservatives will rejoice and forget Mitt is their candidate, substituting Paul Ryan in their minds for the first name on the ballot, and the Kochs will open their wallets wider for Their Black-Haired Boy. See, for example, the fawning by Chuck Todd and David Gregory over Ryan As Visionary.
I suppose that’s enough bashing for one post. (Can Ryan ever be bashed enough?) Let’s review some of the facts on Paul Ryan and whether he’s a good fit with Mitt:
I have a theory about why Ryan is the Boy Wonder, and no, it’s not the one that says Mitt is really Herman Munster and Ryan is his sixth son, Eddie. I think Mitt’s billionaires were tired of his very terrible, awful campaign and decided they’d better get the base fired up before they gave up entirely. And so word was passed to Mitt: It’s Ryan or we’re done with you.
After that, all that was left was tapping Tagg to fire TPaw and Rob Portman. Mitt seems to be quite good at delegating tasks, even firing people.
Over on the left, there is much rejoicing about Mitt’s the billionaires’ choice for the veep slot, and for good reason. After all, for eighteen months we’ve been trying to get the general electorate to see the do-nothing Congress in all its glory, from the debt ceiling debacle to the Ryan budget monstrosity to the zillionth meaningless vote to climb into women’s reproductive systems. Now it will be on display for all to see, naked, fat and ugly.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks in Milwaukee, Wis., on March 30, 2012, with House Budget Committee Chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) looking on. (Steven Senne / AP)
Huff Post
Jon Ward
Posted: 08/07/2012 10:21 am Updated: 08/07/2012 10:54 am
Bill Kristol and Stephen Hayes caused a stir this week when they encouraged Mitt Romney to pick Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) or Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as his running mate.
The conservative Weekly Standard authors based their argument for Ryan on the premise that Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has endorsed the House Budget Committee chairman’s budget anyway, and is going to be attacked for it by President Barack Obama’s campaign no matter what.
“If Ryan’s budget is going to be a central part of the debate over the next three months, who better to explain and defend it than Paul Ryan?” Kristol and Hayes wrote.
Yuval Levin, a former White House policy adviser for President George W. Bush who has been one of the most authoritative conservative voices arguing in favor of fundamental reform of entitlement programs like Medicare, told The Huffington Post that he agrees with Kristol and Hayes.
“The fact is that you can’t choose whether to run on this or not anymore,” Levin said of the Ryan budget and of his Medicare reforms. “Obama will make [Romney] run on this because Democrats continue to think that they have a huge advantage by pushing the issue. And I think there’s going to be a kind of Medicare chapter of the Obama campaign that is going to be coming soon.”
A phone conversation with Paul Begala, a veteran Democratic strategist who is now raising funds and consulting for Priorities USA Action, the main super PAC supporting Obama, confirmed that Levin’s conjecture was correct.
Asked whether Romney will have to campaign on the Ryan budget reforms or whether he should stick to his current jobs and the economy script, Begala told HuffPost, “they will because we’re going to require them to.”
“I promise you the Ryan-Romney budget is going to be central to this discussion,” Begala said. “This is not like some crackpot theory from some long dead Russian immigrant. It is now the official budget of the Republican party of the House of Representatives. This is not like just some kind of fringe deal.”
Begala declined to comment on when Priorities USA plans to unleash their criticisms of the Ryan budget. They are most likely waiting to see if Romney picks Ryan as his running mate, in which case those attacks could be coming sooner than later.
Super PACs like Priorities USA are forbidden by law from coordinating their activities with the Obama campaign. So far this year, the group has worked to reinforce the Obama campaign’s attacks on Romney’s private equity career at Bain Capital.
Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt declined to preview strategic planning for the rest of the campaign, but said as far as they are concerned, Romney already is running on the Ryan budget.
“Governor Romney has not only fully embraced the Ryan budget, but he has introduced a budget plan that is a carbon copy — it makes seniors pay thousands of dollars more each year for their health care and severe cuts to programs essential to the middle class in order to pay for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires,” LaBolt said. “Mitt Romney is campaigning on the flawed assumption that we can just cut our way to prosperity.”
In the first two years after “Obamacare” was signed, Medicare reforms in the law saved seniors a total of $3.4 billion in prescription drug costs by bridging a coverage gap, according to official figures.Over 220,000 beneficiaries have saved an average of $837 in the first three months of 2012, the Medicare agency said Monday. That’s on top of $3.2 billion in savings enjoyed by some 5.1 million seniors in 2010 and 2011 thanks to the Affordable Care Act, according to the advisory on the new figures.The savings were wrung through a combination of discounts on Medicare prescription drugs — 50 percent on brand names, 7 percent on generics — and rebates for seniors who fell under a coverage gap known as the “doughnut hole.”
“The Affordable Care Act is helping millions on Medicare save billions of dollars on care and prescription drugs,” top Medicare official Marilyn Tavenner said in a statement. “The Affordable Care Act gives people on Medicare the relief they need from medical costs and more resources to stay healthy.”
The figures, circulated to reporters, reflect the administration’s latest attempt to highlight the successes of President Obama’s signature domestic achievement. Just last week, they released data showing that an “Obamacare” insurance regulation is yielding rebates for consumers and businesses who provide employees health care.
Republicans have instead seized on cost projections and some of the law’s failures, such as the now-neutered long-term care CLASS program, to paint the law as an expensive monstrosity. The dedicated stream of attacks from the law’s opponents, and ensuing partisan shouting matches that have defined debates of the law, has painted the legislation in a negative light.
Polls say Americans continue to view “Obamacare” unfavorably on balance. With a Supreme Court decision looming on its constitutionality, the law is shaping up to be an important issue in the November elections.
Greg Mankiw, the Harvard professor who serves as one of Mitt Romney’s top economic advisers, has managed to take a shot at two key constituencies – Hispanics and seniors – in a single linked post on his popular economics blog.
Under the header “A Fiscal Solution,” Mankiw, who served as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush, posted an uploaded photo of an unidentified newspaper clip, a joke, that read:
“Budget Cuts: The Immigration Department will start deporting seniors (instead of illegals) in order to lower Social Security and Medicare costs. Older people are easier to catch and less likely to remember how to get home.”
It’s unclear what the source of the original clip was – but it doesn’t appear to be The Onion. Mankiw offered no comment other than “Thanks to the reader who sent this along” – but he clearly thought it was funny.
If Mankiw was just a Harvard professor, the joke wouldn’t likely resonate. But he posted it on Tuesday – the day when Paul Ryan released a budget Democrats instantly decried as a Medicare killer and two days after Romney scored a big win in Puerto Rico’s primary – which counter the flurry of criticism he’s drawn from Hispanic groups for his embrace of the controversial “self-deportation” immigration strategy.
A Romney spokesperson referred calls to Mankiw. He later responded to an email query with this statement: “Obviously, it is not serious. A joke.”
Declaring that “Social Security is the most successful government program in our nation’s history,” and decrying threats to Medicare and Medicaid that would punish Americans who did not cause the current economic crisis, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders brought thousands of progressives from across the Midwest to their feet Saturday, as they cheered his message to President Obama and the Congressional “super-committee”: “We can deal with deficit reduction in a way that is fair and responsible.”
“Instead of balancing the budget on the backs of working families, the elderly, the children, the sick and the most vulnerable,” Sanders said, “it is time to ask the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations in this country to pay their fair share.”
In several speeches to crowds that numbered in the thousands who gathered for Fighting BobFest events in Madison, Wisconsin, Sanders continues to spell out the progressive economic agenda that argues against cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to balance budgets and address deficits and for tax policies that end special breaks for the wealthy and multinational corporations that offshore jobs from the United States.
President Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner are allegedly close to a $3 trillion deficit-reduction package as part of a deal to raise the federal debt ceiling before an Aug. 2 deadline. But the deal is coming under fire from both congressional Democrats and Republicans. Part of it calls for lowering personal and corporate income tax rates, while eliminating or reducing an array of popular tax breaks, such as the deduction for home mortgage interest. Some Democratic lawmakers expressed outrage on Thursday because the Obama-Boehner agreement appears to violate their pledge not to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits, as well as Obama’s promise not to make deep cuts in programs for the poor without extracting some tax concessions from the rich. We’re joined by economist Michael Hudson, president of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends, a Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and author of “Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire.”
The progressive advocacy group Americans United for Change is taking on the GOP, running versions of this ad on broadcast television in the districts of Reps. Steve King (R-IA), Sean Duffy (R-WI), Chip Cravaack (R-MN), and Paul Ryan (R-WI).
“What are House Republicans thinking asking millions of seniors, the less fortunate and the disabled to make more sacrifices and the richest among us to make less,” says AUC executive Tom McMahon in a statement.
If Republicans have their way, there would be no more guaranteed Medicare benefits for America’s seniors, only a guarantee of paying more and more out of pocket for less care after being left to the mercy to the private insurance industry. There would only be a guarantee that millions of Americans would lose their jobs – only a guarantee that America’s poor and disabled will live sicker and die younger while millionaires get another tax break they don’t need and the nation cannot afford. This is not a path to prosperity, only a path to bankrupting seniors so Paris Hilton and BP can have another tax break. And there’s nothing courageous about that.
The television ads are in addition to robocalls the organization began making last week in 23 districts for a total 360,000 calls. But Americans United for Change isn’t the only game in town. The House Majority PAC, a new Democratic Super PAC, has launched a six-figure ad buy with radio ads targeting 10 Republican House members.
In what it’s calling a “substantial” media buy, the House Majority PAC is rolling out 60-second radio spots accusing Republican members of voting to “gut Medicare.””Just days ago, Sean Duffy voted for the Republican budget plan that’s going to have the wealthiest Americans lining up at the trough,” says one spot targeting freshman Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.). “It protects billions in subsidies for big oil, and cuts taxes by trillions for the wealthiest Americans and big corporations. That’ll just make the deficit worse.”
….
The nine other GOP targets are Reps. Paul Gosar (Ariz.), Rick Crawford (Ark.), Allen West (Fla.), Chip Cravaack (Minn.), Charlie Bass (N.H.), Ann Marie Buerkle (N.Y.), Joe Heck (Nev.), Francisco “Quico” Canseco (Texas) and Blake Farenthold (Texas).
The biggest chunk is being spent against West, in FL-22. The good news is outside progressive and Democratic groups recognize the political value of protecting Medicare. Hopefully they’ll help convince Democratic electeds that the push for austerity and the subsequent hurt on the middle class is a really bad idea.
One of the most often-overheard refrains from the Republican Party and its far-right base is that President Obama is the worst president in American history. Others say he “pals around with terrorists.” They say he’s destroying America. They say that he’s weak, that he dithers and that he’s effete — implying either that he’s gay or effeminate or both. Around half of all Republicans have told pollsters that he’s not even constitutionally eligible to be president, which ought to mandate an immediate removal from office.
But what does all of this say about the men and women who are noticeably hesitant to officially announce their candidacies for the Republican nomination? Not a single one of the well-known frontrunners has declared anything more than “exploratory committees” — quite literally the presidential campaign equivalent of dithering.
At this juncture in the 2008 cycle, most of the major Democratic and Republican candidates were underway with their official campaigns. And yet…
Michele Bachmann, a would-be frontrunner, called the president “even worse” than President Carter. She accused him of being “infantile” and suggested he wouldn’t even run for a second term because the “floor has dropped out” from his support. However, tough-talking Michele Bachmann hasn’t officially declared her candidacy to run against this allegedly unpopular weakling.
Mitt Romney said that his “worst fears” about the president have come true and that the chief executive is pushing an “extreme liberal agenda.” Romney also accused the president of being “tentative, indecisive, timid and nuanced” on Libya. However, tough-talking Mitt Romney hasn’t officially declared his candidacy to run against such a timid and indecisive extremist. How would Mitt react when confronted by actual extremists? Hopefully not with the same timidity he’s exercising in his run for president.
Sarah Palin has screeched nearly every imaginable insult at the president (often while she’s utterly botching commonly-known facts about the Constitution). She accused him of “dithering” on Libya. He’s a “spectator-in-chief,” she said. She’s accused him of being a socialist. She told Sean Hannity that she “fears for our democracy” due to the president’s agenda. She’s famously accused him of being a terrorist sympathizer — this alone ought to compel her to run for president if only to rid the executive branch of an obvious terrorist. However, pit bull Sarah Palin appears to be “dithering” when it comes to her campaign to run against this alleged terrorist, socialist ditherer.
First Posted: 04/20/11 09:37 AM ET Updated: 04/20/11 11:13 AM ET
This story has been updated to include additional reporting.
WASHINGTON — After getting mocked by GOP operatives for launching an “offensive” on 25 vulnerable Republicans with minuscule ad buys Tuesday, Democrats are turning the tables with a new stunt aimed at putting some muscle behind their Medicare media campaign.
And they’re doing it in the district of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
In an email sent to supporters around 9 a.m. Wednesday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rep. Steve Israel challenged donors to pony up $25,000 by midnight — in order to run a pointed spot in Boehner’s backyard.
It would mark the DCCC’s first TV buy of the 2012 cycle.
“Let’s go big,” Israel writes, offering to splash the spot featuring an older man mowing lawns with his walker and doing a strip tease to afford his Medicare under the budget plan written by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) earlier this month.
“After House Republicans rammed through a disgraceful budget that would end Medicare — while giving millionaires and billionaires another tax cut — we knew we had to have an eye-popping response,” Israel said.
“We just cut a creative new ad to break through the clutter and take the fight directly to Republican Speaker John Boehner,” he said. “I won’t ruin the ending for you, but trust me, this ad is like nothing you’ve ever seen before.”
The gambit comes a day after the DCCC launched a radio campaign that the National Republican Congressional Committee derided as both a scare tactic and a joke.
“[Democrats] are continuing to use partisan scare tactics and insist on the ability for Washington to continue spending money we don’t have,” the NRCC’s Paul Lindsay emailed reporters.
“Well, if you have heard their radio ad you’re one of the lucky few,” Lindsay added. “Based on early reports on the size of this buy, they are spending a whopping $60.00 in many of the 25 districts.”
$25,000 will likely impress the GOP a little more, especially in a district like Boehner’s where relatively small sums can go a long way.
The publicity also will likely aid the DCCC’s effort to spread the ad further.
WATCH:
UPDATE: 11:01 AM
Lindsay said he wasn’t tickled by the spot, and suggested the ad left out what was actually obscene — what he described as the Democrats’ unserious approach to the deficit.
“Steve Israel was smart to leave out the X-rated part of this ad,” Lindsay said. “That’s the version where Democrats tease Americans into believing their party is serious about tackling the deficit, dance around the issue until Medicare is obsolete, strip seniors of the benefits they have been promised, and force small businesses to foot the bill when the time is up.”
Democrats point to Congressional Budget Office estimates that say the GOP plan to shift seniors into the private insurance market with a voucher-like program will raise their out-of-pocket costs.
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