Day: August 22, 2012
Ryan’s Medicare Proposal Very Unpopular with Voters
72%
Of voters have heard a lot or a little about Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposal to change Medicare into a program that would give future participants a credit toward purchasing private health insurance coverage. And among those who are aware, and a 49% to 34% margin more oppose than favor the idea, a new Pew Research survey finds.
Of voters have heard a lot or a little about Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposal to change Medicare into a program that would give future participants a credit toward purchasing private health insurance coverage. And among those who are aware, and a 49% to 34% margin more oppose than favor the idea, a new Pew Research survey finds.
Albright: Bush Still to Blame for Today’s Woes
All of a sudden, this man gets up and says: ‘So how long are you people going to blame the previous administration?’ And I said: ‘Forever.’
— Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, quoted by Politico, at a campaign rally for President Obama.
Santorum Parses Ways Romney Can Lose
If the campaign is about issues, we win. If it’s about Mitt Romney’s record as a businessman, then we don’t win. If it’s about Mitt Romney’s tax returns, then we don’t win. If it’s about whether people like Mitt Romney more than Barack Obama, then we don’t win.
— Rick Santorum, in an interview with Howard Kurtz.
Ryan Trumps Akin on Anti-Abortion Votes
100%
Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) lifetime voting score from the National Right to Life Committee since he was first elected in 1998 because he hasn’t voted against any bills backed by the group,Bloomberg notes. The group scored Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) “at 90 percent support during one of his six terms and at 100 percent for the rest. Akin co-sponsored every abortion bill supported by Ryan in the almost 12 years the two Republicans have served together in Washington.
Is God Planning to Smite Republicans in Florida?
Remember when Christian Coalition founder and former presidential candidate Pat Robertson said the American Civil Liberties Union, feminists, blacks, and gays were responsible for the Sept. 11 terror attacks? Or when he said that Hurricane Katrina wiped out New Orleans as God’s answer to those who were pro-choice? How about when he said a Haitian earthquake was the result of a deal early Haitians made with the devil?
It looks like Florida, which Pat previously predicted would feel God’s wrath over Disneyworld’s annual “Gay Days” park admission, is finally getting its due. When Pat warned us in 1998, he turned out to be wrong, and the hurricane he thought was coming to Disney instead turned north to Virginia and smote the state that the 700 Club calls headquarters.
Now it looks like God is pissed again, and what is, as of this writing, Tropical Storm Isaac (but which will likely become Hurricane Isaac) is set to hit as Florida opens itself to the pit of inequity that is the Republican National Convention.
Consider how Republicans have recently earned God’s anger.
[…]
Anderson Cooper Confronts GOP Operative Kellyanne Conway on CNN with Facts That Disprove Her False Claim about Rise in Sex-Selection Abortions
We’re so used to Republican operatives going on cable news shows and lying with impunity that it has become newsworthy when a news host exposes one of them in a lie in real time during a broadcast.
This happened recently on CNN when Soledad O’Brien challenged disgraced former Bush I chief of staff John Sununu, a Mitt Romney surrogate, during an interview after he trotted out the Romney campaign’s lie that Pres. Obama had “gutted Medicare.”
Similarly, Anderson Cooper challenged Republican operative/pollster Kellyanne Conway when she attempted to distort a conversation about Missouri tea party candidate Todd Akin’s claim that women’s ovaries naturally repel the sperm of rapists by interjecting a false claim (at about 03:30 in the video above) that there has been a rise in sex-selection abortions in the United States:
WSJ/NBC News Poll: Ryan Pick Has -1 Impact on Likelihood to Vote for Romney – Compares with Dick Cheney’s +2, Palin’s +8
The new Wall St. Journal/NBC News poll finds that 22 percent of likely voters say that Mitt Romney’s decision to put Rep. Paul Ryan on the Republican ticket makes them more likely to vote for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, while 23 percent say he makes them less likely to vote for Romney; 54 percent say the pick doesn’t affect their vote either way.
That margin (-1) compares with the last five vice-presidential picks like this:
| Year | Candidate | Party | VP | Helps Ticket? |
| 2012 | Mitt Romney | GOP | Paul Ryan | -1 |
| 2008 | Barack Obama | Dem | Joe Biden | +8 |
| 2008 | John McCain | GOP | Sarah Palin | +9 |
| 2004 | John Kerry | Dem | John Edwards | +21 |
| 2000 | Al Gore | Dem | Joe Lieberman | +13 | 2000 | George W. Bush | GOP | Dick Cheney | +2 |
The approval rating for Congress is at 12 percent, according to the poll, with 82 percent disapproving. This may be a part of the reason that Congressman Paul Ryan also has a remarkably weak favorable/unfavorable rating: 33 percent/32 percent.
