they re familiar with the sort of infirmities that elderly people have, and familiar with insurance markets. i don t think there is not a mandate in the country for making medicare into a voucher program. there just is not and i don t think there s going to be. it does seem there s an age issue here, robert. let s look at the states we re looking at tonight. the three states obama keeps this lead, in ohio, the president s up over romney 50-44. now, that s pretty healthy. in florida, the president has a three-point lead. not much there. 49-46. wisconsin is the closest of the three. the president s up by two. i think that may have something to do, if the poll s recent enough with the selection of mr. ryan, who s the home state guy, from wisconsin. but my question is are these big enough? has the republican candidates by pushing this issue, eroded
somewhat the natural democratic advantage on medicare? look, it s a nice balance for president obama, but if i was the president, i wouldn t be too confident about a state like wisconsin. i ve spoken to paul ryan about this many times. he comes out of a purple district. he keeps winning there by large margins. ryan always tells me and unless you address this head on, the democrats will be able to define the entire debate. that s how ryan s really changed the entire party 37 romney couldn t avoid this issue. if romney was avading it, he s be getting heat from the right. i can t wait for the debate between joe biden and this guy, paul ryan. because there s a real generational piece here, and bide an s going to be very good on the constituent service on this. he will tell you case after case after case of people in delaware he s helped with medicare issues. and the other guy will be a little colder on that, he won t be quite as winsome when it comes to real people and their lives. w
person, later 70s, 80s and you re still cooking and voting and you hear somebody s coming along the tinker with your medicare, which is the one thing you ve been able to count on in your later years, the one thing. you ve been able to get your medical bills paid for. and this guy comes along and says, i ve got this new idea, i m going to voucherize someone. i want to know who s going to insure someone who s 82 37 what are we talking about here? the insanity of the ryan plan, i got to first of all, go find the insurance company and then see what they re going to charge me? they re not going to charge me something cheaper than medicare. romney and ryan may think it s pretty cagey. i ve spent three days in the past ten with ryan on the trail and almost every speech he gives, in the first two or three minutes, he s right on to medicare. he doesn t sidestep the issue, they re confronting directly 37 from what i hear in boston is that romney s whole gamble and it may be a political gamble,
welcome back to hardball. well, medicare s been front and center in in campaign. and following mitt romney s pick of paul ryan for a vp, even a bigger issue. but it s a hot topic benefits for the president for sure 37 in a new quinnipiac poll, in three battleground states, not only do americans want to keep the program as it stands, they believe the president would do a better job on medicare generally. in ohio, obama leads romney by ten points. in florida, obama leads romney by eight points, in wisconsin, by nine. this is on the issue of who will do a better job on taking care of medicare? and also our msnbc political analyst, i want to start with gene on this.
the old rule of politics is don t step into the other guy s topic because you ll always lose. if you re a democrat, don t talk about cutting spending. because they ll probably believe the republican. it used to be, if you wanted to talk about being tough on the economies, if you re a democrat, it wouldn t be your favorite issue. medicare, republicans since reagan went back have opposed medicare. the ama was their partner this opposing it. why would they start talking about something they have never been credible on? i think they decided to try something new this year figuring that with paul ryan on the ticket, they were especially vulnerable on medicare. try to turn the opponent s strength and partially neutralize the issue. i doubt they re under the illusion that they re going to win on this issue, but maybe not lose quite as badly as they otherwise would. let me go to robert on that. seems to me if you re an elderly