Reuters – House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan arrives to listen to President Obama deliver a speech …
This week, an off-year special election in Buffalo and a purely symbolic vote in the Senate might tell Republicans all they need to know about the mercurial politics of Medicare reform.
First up is New York’s 26th District in a special election Tuesday. If Democrat Kathy Hochul wins — she is leading by 4 to 6 points in the latest polls — it not only would be a setback for House Republicans but would send a message to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his key lieutenants that their Medicare overhaul plan could become a serious political liability.
And on the Senate floor later this week, Democrats are planning to force a vote on the 2012 budget proposal offered by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other top Democrats want to put Senate Republicans on the record voting for — or against — the Ryan proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher program for seniors. Already, a few moderate Republicans — the latest being Sens. Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — have bailed on it or look ready to jump.
For Democrats, these crystallizing moments would affirm that their Medicare-centric attacks are working — and that they’re on the popular side of a major policy issue, maybe for the first time since the rise of the tea party movement two years ago. For moderate and vulnerable Republicans, these events have the potential to create a lot of hand-wringing and second-guessing for a party that’s been on a roll.
“Republicans are getting the worst of both worlds,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Monday during a conference call with reporters. “They want to distance themselves from this vote, but there is no face-saving way to do so. They have tried to turn themselves into pretzels to figure out how to deal with this awful plan introduced by the House.”
House Republicans, for their part, are already in pre-spin mode as they get ready for a media barrage following the loss of the New York seat.
“It’s going to be bad, no question about that,” said a top GOP staffer. “But it’s not the end of the world; it’s only one seat. There are unique circumstances in this race, and Democrats have not even offered a plan to save Medicare. It’s not the end of the world, that’s for sure.”
But Senate GOP moderates have watched their House colleagues face campaign ads claiming they want to “end” Medicare because they voted for it. The “intensity” of voters in the New York special election over the issue — it’s the No. 1 topic in polls coming out of that race — has spiked, which has caught the attention of GOP strategists and political pros nationwide.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has already declared that she won’t vote for the Ryan budget, and Brown came out against the plan Monday in an op-ed in POLITICO, a reverse of his earlier stance, which had caused a huge backlash in the Bay State.
Murkowski said she was unsure whether she could back the Ryan proposal, citing the Medicare measure in particular. “I have not yet firmly come down on the Ryan budget,” Murkowski told POLITICO, saying she’s clearly “concerned” that it could further limit access to providers in Alaska. “I’m not so sure about the components of his Medicare proposal.”
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) hasn’t said how she will vote, but with reelection looming next year, she has made statements critical of the Medicare provision.
Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.), who faces a tea party challenge in his bid for a seventh term, said late Monday that he will vote in favor of the Ryan plan, while Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) said last week that he’s leaning toward backing it.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he’ll vote for the Ryan budget, adding during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday” that the Medicare voucher plan is a “very sensible way to go to try to save Medicare.”
McConnell added that he is not pressuring his colleagues to vote for any budget proposal — perhaps realizing the political peril for some Republican senators.
McConnell will counter Reid’s floor tactics by forcing Senate Democrats — who have to defend 23 seats in 2012 versus 10 for Republicans — to vote on the budget plan offered by President Barack Obama.
“So let’s just stipulate that nobody is trying to throw Grandma off the cliff. Medicare is in serious trouble, serious trouble, and soon,” McConnell said.
Republicans in both chambers are accusing Democrats of playing politics with the House budget vote, and they have tried to counterattack by pointing out that Democrats haven’t bothered in the past two years to come up with their own budget proposal.
“I thank Senate Majority Leader Reid for drawing attention to the fact that it’s been over 750 days since Senate Democrats passed a budget,” Ryan said in a statement to POLITICO. “I am disappointed, however, in the Senate majority leader’s abdication of leadership. Instead of working together with House Republicans to save Medicare, Sen. Reid has chosen to play politics with the health security of America’s seniors.”
The open-seat battle in New York on Tuesday is adding drama to the Senate floor theatrics. House Democrats are cautiously optimistic about pulling off an upset in a pro-Republican district. Hochul has relentlessly attacked Republican Jane Corwin on Medicare, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, pro-Democratic political action committees and labor unions have piled on by dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into the district, saying Corwin wants to dismantle Medicare.
“Republicans have been forced to spend more than $3.3 million in a district so Republican that Carl Paladino got 61 percent of the vote in order to defend their reckless scheme to end Medicare while protecting giveaways for Big Oil,” DCCC Chairman Steve Israel said in a statement. “They better get used to it going into 2012, because the Republican plan to end Medicare is a defining issue of this Congress.”
Republicans, though, argue that the race is competitive because there are three candidates, including wealthy self-funder Jack Davis, who is running as an independent, not because of Medicare.
GOP strategists also privately acknowledge they “took their eyes” off Hochul to go after Davis, a dramatic tactical mistake that allowed the Democrat to play up her credentials on saving Medicare.
That’s not to say the New York special election will be a predictor of anything larger in 2012 — Democrats won the majority of special elections during the 2009-10 cycle, only to face disaster during midterm elections, when they lost 63 House seats.
“I’m sure Democrats will try to spin it that way,” said House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, noting that Republicans have a poor record of winning special elections, especially in the Empire State.
And the California Republican pointed out that Hawaii Republican Rep. Charles Djou won a special election in May 2010 when two Democrats split the vote in the three-way race, only to see Djou easily defeated in November.
“When you run a special election, because you don’t have a chance to get out all the facts, … you can play tricks. That’s why you see these games get played in a three-way race,” McCarthy added, dismissing any suggestion that the American public had turned against the GOP over Medicare.
However, with so much at stake, even Corwin hasn’t fully embraced the Ryan budget, calling it a “terrific first step” and the start of a “conversation that we absolutely have to have.”
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