i mean, to the point of denouncing president obama as a flip-flopper today, i just thought, wow! what else could they do? but there s two ways in which it operates. one is that they are slinging some arrows at president obama, calling him making all those accusations that you just ran down, but they are also trying to break any arrows that might potentially ever been shot at mitt romney. they re trying to make it seem like, ah, all the politicians say that each other all the politicians say to each other that they re going to kill medicare. i m sure it s not true about any of them. so it essentially disarms the attack against romney on that. and that s an old tactic, the idea of inoculation in one way or another. and again, both parties do it, smart political operatives try it. so that you anticipate what your opponent is going to say about you and you do whatever you can do, including just blame your opponent for the same thing, in order to blunt the attack. so that in the end,
flip-flopper today, i just thought, wow! what else could they do? but there s two ways in which it operates. one is that they are slinging some arrows at president obama, calling him making all those accusations that you just ran down, but they are also trying to break any arrows that might potentially ever been shot at mitt romney. they re trying to make it seem like, ah, all the politicians say that each other all the politicians say to each other that they re going to kill medicare. i m sure it s not true about any of them. so it essentially disarms the attack against romney on that. and that s an old tactic, the idea of inoculation in one way or another. and again, both parties do it, smart political operatives try it. so that you anticipate what your opponent is going to say about you and you do whatever you can do, including just blame your opponent for the same thing, in order to blunt the attack. so that in the end, in the end, the voter doesn t know more about you or thi
i mean, to the point of denouncing president obama as a flip-flopper today, i just thought, wow! what else could they do? but there s two ways in which it operates. one is that they are slinging some arrows at president obama, calling him making all those accusations that you just ran down, but they are also trying to break any arrows that might potentially ever been shot at mitt romney. they re trying to make it seem like, ah, all the politicians say that each other all the politicians say to each other that they re going to kill medicare. i m sure it s not true about any of them. so it essentially disarms the attack against romney on that. and that s an old tactic, the idea of inoculation in one way or another. and again, both parties do it, smart political operatives try it. so that you anticipate what your opponent is going to say about you and you do whatever you can do, including just blame your opponent for the same thing, in order to blunt the attack. so that in the end,
discussion right now because of his prominence about whether paul ryan might actually end up being mitt romney s running mate. chuck todd raised that on the air earlier tonight. in a way it doesn t matter because the obama campaign and the democrats are going to make him in the same way you can remember when clinton ran for re-election, dole/kemp was the ticket. but in clinton s mouth, it was dole/gingrich. it was all about the republican congress going after medicare and the social safety net. and bill clinton positioning himself as sort of the last line of defense for voters who back then were in the middle and wanted the basic priorities of the republicans in terms of balancing the budget. but wanted to do it in a humane way and thought that the republican congress was going too far. and i see a lot of that basic strategy in what obama and the democrats are doing where it s again saying we want to get to the balanced budget, we want to grow the economy, too. but what the republi
it s far too extreme. there is a broader strategic issue about why house republicans did this. they re under no illusion that senate controlled by democrats is going to take up the paul ryan plan and vote on it, it s going to become law. them putting out this budget essentially giving democrats a target to shoot at like this, i mean, they saw the way that democrats were able to use the first paul ryan budget. and the kill medicare moniker for that which stuck. and all of the other ways in which they were able to sort of use that to not just caricature republicans but to criticize them for their priorities which they have put down in black and white. the paul ryan plan doesn t reduce the deficit. it takes this huge, huge hit at programs for the poor, and it turns medicare into coupons. so why would you put all of that out there in an election year, knowing that the democrats could then shoot at it? i think there are a few things going on now in terms of the incentives that motivate