regulations? do you think that it s time that we had leaders who will tell us the truth? do you think that it s time that we have leaders who will quit demagoguing social security and save social security from bankruptcy? do you think that it s time that we have leaders that will quit demagoguing medicare and save medicare from bankruptcy? do you think that it s time for mitt romney. and paul ryan. lee, come up here, paul ryan says he will not come back on this stage until lee greenwood sings that song. lee, come on up here. let s hear it again for lee greenwood. [applause] and i will sing that song. that i wrote in next year 30 years since i wrote this and it still stands
that s not a way to strengthen medicare to ensure seniors get the care they need. joining me now is former new hampshire governor john sununu, a surrogate for the romney campaign and of course, the former chief of staff to president george herbert walker bush. thanks for being with us. nice to be with you again. always good to see you. like to give you a chance to respond to stephanie cutter. look, can you imagine how much gall it takes for the democrats, stephanie cutter and barack obama, who have made lifetime careers out of demagoguing the medicare issue, who cut that medicare ad on paul ryan, to now express concern that the republicans are pointing out that the only person that ever put into place a law that cut money out of medicare and hurt seniors is barack obama, with his $700 billion plus cut in medicare. it s unbelievable. the hypocrisy, the double language, if you will, and
political weapon, slamming republicans. here s what the president said to the republican caucus two years ago. if the main question is going to be what do we do about medicare costs, any proposal that paul makes will be painted fa factually from the perspective of those who disagree with it as cutting benefits over the long term. i don t think you disagree with that, that there is a political vulnerability to doing anything that tinkers with medicare and that s probably the biggest savings that are obtained through paul s plan, and i raise that not because we shouldn t have a serious discussion about it. i raise that because we re not going to be able to do anything about any of these entitlements if what we do is characterize whatever proposals are put out there as well, you know, that s the other party s being irresponsible. the other party s trying to hurt
editorial writer. so how does it feel to be in the dictionary, mark? it feels kind of weird. thank you for asking. let s talk about, speaking of mash-ups, let s talk about what happened today and all of the fighting over medicare, pro and con. mark, first to you, then ruth. where do we stand today as everyone tries to define paul ryan before he can define himself? well, to me, the big issue is medicare. i ve been surprised at apparently what little preparation the romney team did in getting ready for this issue. they did a great job, i thought, in the first 36, 48 hours rolling out paul ryan, but they re not really on top of not just medicare but the whole ryan budget and i suspect that within 48 hours, we ll see a lot of advertising on the air going after both ryan and romney on issues like medicare and tax cuts to the wealthiest americans that could really define this race even before the republicans have their convention. i was at a conference this
short time ago. criticizing mitt romney for wanting to end tax credits for wind energy production. let s watch. that s what he said about wind power. you can t drive a car with a windmill on it. now, i i don t know if he s actually tried that. i know he s had other things on his car. seemed to be an ad lib there. what are we devolving to, mark? it s hard to know exactly why the president chose to go that route. i will say one of the impacts of the ryan announcement are not only are democrats happy with it but they have their confidence back. just in talking to democrats, watching the body language of democrats on television, they now think, i believe, they ve gone back to a position where they expect to win this race. i think the president s been first among equals in his camp of being confident he would win. but i think now they feel like their plan to go after medicare, taxes for the wealthy, now has a peg from here to eternity.