Steve Benen has pointed out that the AARP has responded to Paul Ryan’s attack on the organization as being a “a left-leaning pressure group.” The GOP’s Austerity Czar had hurt feefees because the association representing over 40 million members did not like his galtian fantasy budget. And so Ryan attacked the AARP as corrupt group that opposes his RyanCare because they only want to make money through selling branded health insurance plans mandated by the ACA.
Turns out that the AARP took exception to Ryan’s smear and pushed back (emphasis added):
“We make decisions on policy based on what we believe will be in the best interests of Americans over age 50. A recent attack on AARP from a political action committee erroneously suggests otherwise. The truth is that the budget plan passed by the House probably would present more opportunities for AARP to strengthen its finances, since every older American would be forced into private Medicare plans, including those that AARP brands.
“But we opposed the legislation nonetheless because we believe the goal should be to strengthen Medicare, not upend it, just as we’ve expressed concern about alternative plans that could use unelected boards to cut Medicare benefits. That has been AARP’s long-stated position, and the well-being of those who need Medicare is the only ‘interest’ we have in this debate.”
In the fight between wingnutopia and the AARP, I’ll put my money on the latter group. The AARP has a lot of credibility with their members and in one sentence they pretty much destroyed RyanCare. That should get some wingnuts nervous when they have their occasional lucid moments.
OTHO, it will encourage most of the nutters just to double down on attacks of AARP as they try to turn it into the new ACORN. I sense a nifty Breitbart/O’Keefe hit job coming down the pike. This should be fun. I wonder who will win…
Cheers
WereBear
Gad, you just made me picture O’Keefe got up as some Mamie Van Doren wannabe…
joeyess
Oh, man……. this just gets better and better. Now, House GOP freshmen want a truce in the medicare debate.
Would someone care to explain to these whiney fucksticks that politics is a contact sport?
Napoleon
I just turned 50 and reading about this episode this morning made me thing, as much as it pains me, maybe I should join AARP.
Pangloss
For someone proposing the elimination of a program that has lengthened lifespans and dramatically improved the health of millions over the past 47 years, he certainly has a thin skin.
Yutsano
Oh I hope so. Them old folks lurve them some AARP. Taking on one of the most popular and respected advocacy organizations with a large and growing membership sounds like a great strategy to me Paulie. I wonder if he’s decided this whole gubmint stuff is too much work and he’s just trying to commit career suicide by election.
RP
attacking AARP = really, really bad idea
The Dangerman
That’s nothing; in their latest attempt at African American outreach, Hannity and Rove are going after a Rapper (some Dude named Common, who I have never heard of) that even Fox News has complimented in the past for his positive music. I believe Rove used the word “thug”. Don’t these dumb fuckers understand that the choir they are preaching to already vote Republican and that they need to reach out to those pesky “others”?
geg6
@joeyess:
LOL! Are they fucking serious? I have never seen a bigger bunch of whiners than the manly men’s men of the GOP.
piratedan
@joeyess: never you mind that we had to demonize you and all of your policies to get elected, now that you have us by the short hairs, we want to renegotiate the deal that we never had.
love to see the Prez snap back with “grow a pair” and “what’s in it for me?”
Bipartisanship, how does it work?
Just Some Fuckhead
@RP: I have nightmares about AARP merging with the NRA and forming NRAARP to hunt down and kill people caught messing with Medicare.
The Moar You Know
I missed that. Good lord, what a stupid thing to say. They’re all old (obviously) and majority, although not overwhelmingly so, Republican.
Crossing the AARP will be the end of Ryan’s career, I’ll bet.
joeyess
@geg6: isn’t that rich? ;^)
Xantar
@joeyess:
And Obama would accede to this request…why exactly? Are they going to promise to stop calling him the most radical leftist President ever?
Joel
Could the AARP be the Joseph Nye Welch to Breitbart/O’Keefe’s McCarthy/Cohn?
themann1086
AARP wins this, no contest. They’re easily the most powerful non-banking/military lobbying group in the country; you mess with them too much, you go down.
joeyess
@Xantar: It looks as though the President is still having a good week. I’d wager that he’s chuckling over this letter with BIden in the Oval Office as we speak.
Keith
@The Dangerman:
Common is really more of an actor these days anyway
Just Some Fuckhead
Paul Ryan is only 40. He’ll regret this when he turns 50 and doesn’t get his AARP magazine subscription.
Waldo
Granpa Aarp wasn’t dead — he was napping. Dumb fucks awoke the sleeping white-haired giant.
Yutsano
@Xantar:
HAHAHAHAHA!! Oh you so funnee! They just want Obama and the Dems to stop attacking them, they are totally reserving the right to make attacks themselves. After all, they ARE the representatives of real Merika here!
James E. Powell
I predict that the Republicans will win.
No, they are not going to convince anyone to adopt the Ryan plan, but they will move the debate substantially toward that proposal. The people who oppose it, including AARP, will lose all credibility (i.e., they will no longer be serious enough to be invited on talk shows), and Obama and the Democrats will manage to give the Republicans all the credit for the improved economy in 2012. Obama will be re-elected, but, as with Clinton, the Democratic Party will suffer from the process.
Also too, that rough beast will continue slouching toward Bethlehem.
The Moar You Know
@joeyess: I have a better idea. How about we keep holding them down, and continue to keep kicking them in the face until their own mothers and wives vomit every time they catch a glimpse of their shattered visages?
I know. How “shrill” of me.
dmsilev
@joeyess: I read about that this morning. Whiny little twits can dish it out, but heavens forbid their opponents dare to punch back.
I’d just love for some reporter to ask Obama about that letter; he’s pretty damn good at the dry-wit evisceration thing.
joeyess
@James E. Powell: Pollyanna.
Mark S.
It’s a widely held assumption here that demographics will do in the GOP as it’s currently aligned in a decade or so. This assumes the GOP doesn’t lose the oldster vote before then.
You Don't Say
So AARP hoisted Ryan on his own petard. Too funny.
Social outcast
Attacking AARP? Good plan to piss off important constituencies. Next up, the GOP calls all military veterans pussies and suggest that Catholics are too loyal to the Pope.
...now I try to be amused
I’d be less amazed about this if the VRWC had created an astroturf alternative to AARP for “Real Americans” before they attacked AARP.
fhtagn
Apparently AARP! is the GOP’s new AARGH!
Juicetard (FKA Liberty60)
When they whine and demand a “truce” and more civil dialogue, it is a sign they are weakening.
That goes for our side, too.
Politics is a blood sport, not an Oxford debate.
dmsilev
@The Moar You Know:
Mongol General: Conan! What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.
Though granted, Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin seem to do plenty of lamentation even without the crushing.
danimal
@joeyess: When they’re whining, we’re winning.
Hopefully the party elders keep the pressure on this time.
skeeball
can o’keefe dress as an aging 60 year old pimp?
joeyess
I fully expect a heavily edited Breibart video is now in the offing.
Chris
It’s GOP SOP to single out their enemies as special interest groups overrun with greed and demanding special rights and privileges that allow them to profit unfairly from the rest of the people. Unions, civil rights movements, advocates for the poor… you name it. Divide and conquer.
Unfortunately for them, there’s only so many groups you can do it to before you’ve pissed off more people than you have on your side. Republicans cannot afford to piss off the AARP or the millions of elderly people they represent: period. I agree with Dennis. Ryan & co. will either back off or lose big.
kth
Of course the AARP are liberals, that’s what you call people who don’t want old folks to eat cat food. The people who don’t care if old folks eat cat food are called conservatives.
If the right wing wants to persuade all those old folks who just voted for them in 2010 that people who actually care about them are liberals, I won’t stand in their way.
Comrade Javamanphil
My parents are in AARP and right wing. I have no doubt they are hoping a right wing alternative to AARP will form as they view AARP as leftist. Some tribal links are stronger than others.
Bobby Thomson
@Just Some Fuckhead:
FTFY.
NonyNony
@Social outcast:
I really, really want to figure out a path that leads the GOP to decide that the NRA is the next ACORN.
I can’t see how it happens, but I never thought they’d be stupid enough to go full-ACORN on the AARP, so hope springs eternal…
Chris
@Yutsano:
LOL! If that were the case, you’d think they’d be thick skinned enough to take a few punches. FDR was. (Course, the reason they’re flipping out about this is because it touches an area where, uncomfortably for them, they most definitely do not represent the will of the American people, “real” or otherwise).
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
@joeyess:
Dear Socia1ist commun1st leader of the demoncrat party and destroyer of the free market health care system:
Please be civil.
kbai.
ChrisNYC
The GOP now has at least two “conservative alternatives” to AARP — 60+ Assoc and Amer Seniors Assoc. I saw 60+ talking heads all over tv during the midterms (obvs). They’ve been saying AARP is a liberal org since 2009 so I’m not sure this is AS third rail-ish as it seems. Supposedly AARP lost 60K members to the ASA in 2009 — they sold it as “anti-Obamacare.”
I think the Ryan Plan is going to kill the GOP in 2012 — just not sure AARP is as untouchable as they have been.
Xantar
It just occurred to me that I live fairly close to DC and that there are a number of party supply stores where I live. Maybe I should send some green balloons to the Republican offices?
Ash Can
When Ryan first announced his budget travesty and all the Big Name Pundits were falling over each other in their hast to declare it bold! and visionary!, I was of the opinion that it would be a good thing for AARP to glom onto this issue. Evidently that’s what happened. And Ryan obviously reacted in true GOP WATB form, declaring that he was being victimized by libruls. Great move, Paulie. Enjoy your town halls this summer.
@joeyess: Commenter Dexter mentioned this as an OT on the previous thread, and I remarked there that I imagined Obama keeping that letter in a file marked “for when I need a good laugh.” That letter really is priceless. Can you imagine him responding to them? They wouldn’t feel a thing, and then they’d try to walk away and immediately collapse into a heap of neatly sliced and diced body parts. I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that.
joeyess
@Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac: (lowers head) I’m sorry.
...now I try to be amused
@ChrisNYC:
Ah, but does membership in the 60+ Association or the American Seniors Association get you discounts?
JCT
@Comrade Javamanphil:
You know, there was a movie about an “organization”like that. I think it was called “Soylent Green”.
@Yutsano: Benen had some good takes on this. 1) Ryan is so used to being fellated by the press as this wonder boy that he can’t deal with any criticism and 2) the freshman complaining is like the dems getting ahold of the baseball bat they used to bludgeon them with in 2010. And then calling “truce”.
joeyess
@Ash Can:
Yes. Obama Ninja. That has a nice ring to it, no?
Kane
I was discussing this issue at another site when a storm of trolls came in attacking the AARP. The attacks are real, and they often leave their calling card of support for the AMAC. The AMAC describes itself as “the conservative alternative to AARP.”
geg6
@ChrisNYC:
60K is a drop in the bucket to the AARP. And, once the Teatards who quit realize that they can’t get all the benefits of AARP without the huge numbers that AARP has, they’ll be crawling back. I know literally dozens of oldsters who have their supplemental insurance through AARP because it’s the only one that is affordable and will take on old, sick people.
Capri
This is the reason why Paul Ryan (R-Sucker) was the guy that became the face of this budget. If he’s politically destroyed because of this, unable to win a race for dog catcher, do you think Cantor, McConnell, or any other prominent Republican will lose a second’s sleep? There’s a reason nobody who has been able to survive in Washington longer than one election cycle wanted their name attached to this thing. So they can hang the whole thing around his neck and throw him overboard.
Omnes Omnibus
Christ, attacking AARP is like attacking Matlock. You just don’t do it. Not if you want to keep the elderly on your side.
Maude
The Republicans now understand the meaning of the term Third Rail.
jl
The GOP’s deficit hawk poster boy throws another group of potential supporters, previously deemed acceptable ‘real Americans’ out of their life boat. I like it.
Who is left in the boat, now? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Actually I agree with the GOP that the Democrats should stop scaremongering attacks. Instead they should just whip up a sequence of 30 second fact ads comparing Medicare with GOPeldercare, with dollar signs attached to the differences in cost, and citations to, I dunno, say an AARP analysis of the two plans.
That approach might work better than an ad intentionally designed to be scary. The facts will be scarier than some goofy slogan.
The GOP still won’t be happy, since then they will complain about the appropriately gloomy doom music in the ad.
Yutsano
@Chris: They are Republicans. And as we all know, Republican fee-fees must be kept from being hurt at all times and in all situations. Otherwise the terrorists win. It’s true, Sean Hannity confirmed it.
Roger Moore
@The Dangerman:
They can’t because they’re trapped in identity politics. You can’t simultaneously use an identity based appeal and try to attract outsiders.
jl
@Maude: I do not think that analogy is appropriate. The GOP plan is to rip up the tracks and scrap the train.
kdaug
@James E. Powell:
Oh, puh-lease. When was the last time you saw the AARP on a talk show?
Now the commercial breaks are another matter altogether.
PS
Age and experience beats, um, fairly young and kinda dumb
EconWatcher
That House vote on the Ryan budget is the biggest unforced political error I can remember in quite some time. It will seal their doom IF the economy is improving come November next year.
If not, we have to hope for a really, really crazy candidate. I mean Christine O’Donnell crazy. Bachmann would probably do.
dollared
@ChrisNYC: Agreed. And the Republicans will fund 60+ and push it hard, hard hard for at least a decade. Once again, they are fighting a war, we are having a policy discussion.
...now I try to be amused
@Capri:
So far, so good. Now all they have to do is explain away the 234 other House Republicans who voted for it.
kdaug
@fhtagn:
It’s a union. For old people.
Napoleon
@…now I try to be amused:
There is one and they are running ads in support of the Ryan plan on the basis it “saves” Medicare.
dollared
@jl: No, please scare. How about a nice ad with a middle aged couple deciding between paying for their child’s first year of college or grandma’s home care for mild Alzheimer’s? Punch line: “What happens to us in 15 years?”
JCT
@Maude: That’s for sure. Watching that happen in real time was delicious.
Dems: Paul, yeah — don’t worry, we turned the electricity off — you can grab on nice and tight. No problems.
Chris
@Capri:
That’s a good point. Sort of like Li Peng being made the public face of Tienanmen Square, allowing Deng Xiaoping and the rest of them to remain at least publicly above the fray (and, at the same time, sideline a whackjob by associating him with an atrocity).
Yutsano
@dollared: Let them. AARP has been in existence for over 60 years and is a trusted and familiar name with strong advocacy results and proven membership benefits. No amount of money makes up for that.
Napoleon
@Comrade Javamanphil:
Here you go:
http://www.60plus.org/
dollared
@Capri: That’s the one part I really like about this situation. Ryan clearly was “volunteered” to go attack the big dragon.
Stillwater
And rightly so. By admitting that they’d be better off under the Ryan plan they’ve outed themselves as kryptofascistcommies who care more about the people they represent than their own self-interest.
That’s unAmerican.
Davis X. Machina
Preachers, and hedge-fund managers.
The soldiers and peasants of the new glorious Revolution.
Вся власть Советам банкиров и проповедников!
johnsmith1882
AARP ain’t nothin’ ta fuck with. An AARP card is basically 20% off of whatever, wherever you happen to go. No way 40 million oldsters just let this slide. They love their senior discounts, they hold grudges, they vote. The GOP is pulling the tiger’s tail here. More please! Do it! Jump!
Kane
The AARP brand is a lot stronger than the GOP brand.
Republicans win one mid-term election, and they overreach beyond imagination.
dollared
@kdaug: I keep dreaming of an American Association of Working People. Not union affiliated but not hostile to unions, visibly pro-economic development, but policy advocacy for family leave, 40 hour work weeks, health care, and special discount programs for various types of social insurance.
...now I try to be amused
@Kane:
Do they overreach because they’re deluded, or because they know they’re running out of time to rig the system in their favor?
Ash Can
@Capri: The nifty thing is, the vote’s already happened (in the House, at least, and Reid has already stated publicly that he wants it to happen in the Senate too), and the Republicans who voted for it are getting lit into for doing so. That’s precisely what these crybabies are whining about in this letter. They can slap Paulie in the bus and throw him under the face all they want, but it’s too late. They own their votes, and the Dems — in a messaging move that we always say here we wish they’d do — are evidently making that stick; otherwise these poor things wouldn’t be carrying on about it.
overeducated
Dear President Fartbama,
We know we said you were an UnAmerican traitor who was born in Kenya and you wanted to murder old people, and we called your wife fat, and we said that you were in league with terrorists, but we’d really appreciate it if you stopped the DNC from running adds about our voting record. It’s simply unfair to hold us accountable for our actions, when our words make us look so much better.
Love,
THE GOP
Mnemosyne
@joeyess:
I can’t wait to see how Nancy Pelosi smashes that right back in their stupid faces.
Once she stops laughing, that is.
gogol's wife
@Napoleon:
Join, definitely.
ChrisNYC
@geg6: Right, 60K is small, but not bad for one year. Further, the reason that AARP gets the discounts it gets is because it has always delivered such huge numbers of customers. A viable competitor — once they get to some threshold number (have no idea what that is) — can do that as well. Again, I’m not saying AARP is toothless or anything. I just think that there’s a reason that Paul Ryan feels like it’s ok to attack them as “liberal.” Also too, the GOP probably WANTS this news out because there are lots of older people who will drop AARP on the basis of it.
Steeplejack
@Napoleon:
Ditto. I had been a little leery because of AARP’s “branding” of (what I think are) Medicare Part D plans, but this letter sort of renews my faith in them.
Gravie
So I posted an excerpt from the Steve Benen article on my FB page, and a friend who considers herself an “independent thinker” immediately posted, “Well, AARP is a left-leaning group.” Really, what can you say?
artem1s
@ChrisNYC:
My father has been saying AARP were socialists for a while as well. I assumed it was some visceral opposition to collectivism rather than an organized call by Beck or Limbaugh. guess I was wrong.
In order for the GOP to completely privatize Medicaid they have to drive a stake through the heart of AARP. So I’m betting this won’t go away quickly or quietly. There will be a full on assault on their membership or an inside take over like they tried with the Sierra Club.
Mark S.
@…now I try to be amused:
Oh, they’re deluded. Most of them are too dumb to know what’s in Ryan’s plan, and they just do what they are told. Ryan’s a Randoid, and Boehner’s too stupid to know that he isn’t the person to write the budget. Unfortunately, Ryan’s probably the smartest gooper they got. Could you imagine Gohmert or Bachmann trying to write a budget?
WereBear
@ChrisNYC: But there’s a lot of people who will pull back and reconsider because AARP isn’t some hippie in a tiedyed shirt; it’s THEM.
I think the GOP has gone a (dental) bridge too far.
Maude
@jl:
It’s an expression that means don’t touch certain things. They are Social Security and Medicare. Also, these days, Medicaid.
They touched the third rail and got a shock and a bad one. This is something they can’t ever recover from. It will get repeated endlessly that they tried to throw granny to the wolves.
This is the best time to follow politics. Obama has made it fun.
The letter is wonderful for the Dems.
Obama told off Ryan to his face in a speech and got Bin Laden. Don’t think I’d be asking him to protect me from those mean old Dems.
JCT
@Gravie: Lately it seems as anything left of the John Birch Society can be called “left-leaning”
Roger Moore
@Kane:
I think the Republicans are afraid of the same demographic problems we’re always pointing out. Instead of trying to reach out to minorities, they’re trying to lock in as much of their program as possible while they still have the strength to do so. They’re going into a frenzy and burning their bridges because they know they don’t have much time left.
AAA Bonds
Hey, if the AARP goes down, AIPAC becomes the biggest lobby in America.
:D
jayjaybear
Seniors who think AARP is too liberal to support deserve death panels and catfood.
Omnes Omnibus
@WereBear: Also, AARP is a trusted organization. Most members have received some benefits from it and have seen it fight hard on behalf of its members. I don’t think that the parallels with the McCarthy-Army hearings are off base.
jayjaybear
@JCT: Even the John Birch Society is quaintly centrist by modern political standards. The GOP has stampeded to the right well past the JBS position and left them in the dust. Hell, the JBS booth at the NC primary debates was probably the LEAST out-there booth in the whole hall.
geg6
@ChrisNYC:
I don’t want to snark at you, but I can only conclude that you don’t know anything about Paul Ryan and don’t know many people over 50. Paul Ryan is an absolute ideologically hard core objectivist and wouldn’t have any qualms attacking any organization that wasn’t an Ayn Rand fan club. He is too stupid, literally, to understand what and who the AARP are. As to your second point there, I think you have already seen the upper limits of the number of elderly who will be dropping out of the AARP. I live in an area where the AARP is as sancrosanct as the local churches (median age is 41 and 42% of the population is 45 or older). And I don’t know a single one of them that would drop their AARP membership, no matter who tells them to. They live with the benefits of AARP every day. Paul Ryan and Reince Priebus are just some assholes from somewhere else that don’t send them a magazine every month, provide affordable life and supplemental health insurance, and 20% off at every local and chain restaurant.
Ash Can
@Gravie:
This is what you can say: “Since when does advocating for seniors’ rights and well-being make someone ‘left-leaning’? Do I have to favor a lower living standard for seniors in order to be considered right-wing or even centrist?”
Martin
@Steeplejack: ‘Branding’? AARP offers Part C and Part D plans, as well as supplemental insurance. Nothing different from anyone else, and decent plans as well.
For vets, look at what USAA offers. They’re a similarly left-leaning group, apparently. I’ve used USAA services for two decades and they’re fantastic. I’m not a vet, but my grandmother was an army officer (nurse, WWII) and the kids and grandkids are eligible on her ticket.
Mike G
@The Dangerman:
The goal of Fox Noise is to get their asshole audience addicted to a regular Hate Fix, so they’ll keep coming back and buying advertiser’s crap to get their daily dose of manufactured outrage at the usual ethnic and social scapegoats for their shitty lives. They have the morality of cigarette makers.
ChrisNYC
@dollared: Well, if it’s a war, then things like 60+ show that the GOP knows it is losing.
Before you go deciding the Dems are so terribly ineffective, take a look at the reliable constituencies they’ve developed — seniors, unions, women, African Americans. The GOP has nothing like that. I think one reason for the anti-HCR hysteria was because the GOP knows that the Dems successfully tied people to the Dem party thru Medicare, SS, pro choice, etc. They wanted to stop another generation from feeling like the Dems “gave” them something, delivered.
The attacks on unions, Sarah Palin’s candidacy, this anti-AARP jihad are attempts by the GOP to break Dems’ hold over these voters because the GOP has successfully transformed itself into a very small tent. I swear they have deluded themselves into thinking they will chip away at African American support of President Obama and Dems in general by pushing Herman Cain. I’d rather have the voters (and the Dem record) than be in the GOP’s position of trying to woo them away with nothing more than a “conservative principles” argument.
Steeplejack
@Martin:
Yeah, I know. I used “branding” because that’s the delicate phrasing they chose in their response to Ryan.
Omnes Omnibus
@geg6:
They are both from Wisconsin and I doubt very many around here will be dropping their memberships soon.
ChrisNYC
@geg6: I don’t mean to snark at you back but the idea that any elected doesn’t know who AARP are is just crazy to me. I think you give Ryan too much credit for sincerity. This is politics. SS is not called the “third rail” for nothing. But ok, glad to hear the GOP plan is dead in the water. Because we know that no voters EVER vote against their economic interests, especially not wingers. Never.
fhtagn
@ChrisNYC:
Talibangelicals, white southern men who like playing victim….
Dennis G.
@Gravie: They are a reality-based group so perhaps they are left-leaning, because–as we all know–reality has a liberal bias.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Social outcast:
Close, but I don’t think they’ll call them pussies look more for the “they only have to work for 20 years and then they get a pension and free medical treatment for life! They are bankrupting the country!”
Hey I never thought that they would EVER vilify first responders, especially after 9/11, but that is exactly what they are doing now.
geg6
@ChrisNYC:
I’m just telling you that the idea that Paul Ryan doesn’t really GET what the AARP is, who it is, and what it does for people is NOT in any way out of the bounds of reality. This is the same guy that actually thought the 55+ crowd would be fine with him taking away their children’s and grandchildren’s opportunity to have Medicare later in life. And, because of the demographics of where I live, I am all too familiar with the great respect and love that seniors have for the AARP, above almost all other social organizations save their churches. The AARP has been around for at least 60 years helping them. 60-Plus has done what for them, exactly, that they would drop AARP like a hot potato?
geg6
@Omnes Omnibus:
True. Which makes my point even more forcefully.
nodakfarmboy
@dollared: I think we refer to this as the “Democratic Party”. Although, I don’t have a discount card yet…
ChrisNYC
@WereBear: Funny. I don’t disagree. I just think there’s more here than “oh Ryan screwed up” or “he’s a wild eyed ideologue.” There’s a larger plan. It’s risky, yeah, but that may just be a sign of how thoroughly screwed the GOP’s future is.
Navigator
Not 40 million members.
40 million high turnout voters.
jl
@Maude:
I agree with you. I was trying to make a little joke.
Seriously, my main objection to the term ‘third rail’ is the context for the phrase used by corporate, or simply clueless CW, media.
There, the phrase is typically used in what I think is a disparaging way, and always with the subtext that the programs are some kind of unsustainable boondoggles that must be changed by cutting benefits, but cannot be because the ignorant masses will not face reality. I half expect to hear about the fall of Rome and bread and circuses whenever I see the term ‘third rail’ as used by the actors who play pundits and national affairs reporters on TV.
I’ve never heard ‘third rail’ used in the context when applied to ag subsidies or corporate tax shelters. What I hear is something along the lines of ‘well, you CAN’T touch those, so you are wasting time even trying, and evading the correct answer to my question is that we have to gut Medicare and Social Security’, at which point the Sunday talkie, or whatever, usually cuts to an Archer Daniels Midland commercial.
Obama’s health care reform touched the third rail in a way that made sense, and was not a swindle or drastic cut, or phase out disguised as reform, and it passed. Enough voters understood that so the GOP ‘third rail’ scare tactics did not arouse enough popular opposition to derail reform of the third rail.
Compare and contrast to what is happening with the attempted Ryan/GOP Medicare phase out scam.
Note, I made some minor edits for clarity.
And Edit Note alert: I especially dislike the ‘third rail’ narrative for Social Security, which is about the only major federal program that can be made budgetarily sustainable with relatively minor tinkering. And furthermore serves a very important social and economic function. Quite the opposite of Roman bread and circuses unsustainable boondoggle.
Emma
ChrisNYC: From what I can see in a quick Google, they claim about 40 million members. There are several competing organizations, so it’s not a given that people who drop the AARP join AMAC, since many of the AARP critics are from the left.
JCT
@Litlebritdifrnt:
That was an easy one — New Yorkers aren’t “real” americans. Hell, I seem to remember Trent Lott commenting that he didn’t think of apartment houses as being “homes” in the aftermath of 9/11.
Bob Loblaw
Things are so fortuitous right now, not even the Democrats could possibly screw this up. Though we must remain vigilant, I suppose. The words “grand bargain” will never not cause a Senator to go all tingly in their happy parts.
Martin
@Steeplejack: Ah, gotcha.
Mnemosyne
@ChrisNYC:
The reason the Republicans won in 2010 was because they barraged older voters with screams that the Democrats were trying to kill Medicare. Those voters were not voting against their own interests, as they saw it — they thought they were voting to save Medicare from the evil soshulist Democrats.
I really don’t see those people doing a 180 and supporting the Ryan plan. If we want to talk tribalism, they’re going to side with their AARP tribe before the Republican tribe.
ChrisNYC
@Emma: Is AMAC another conservative one? I have no idea on the numbers or even what numbers add up to real bargaining weight. I’m just talking what I think is the GOP strategy.
dollared
@nodakfarmboy: I wish – not for the discount card, but for the party affiliation. But it clearly, clearly, clearly has not worked, plus the very fact of party affiliation makes it not work.
The point is to establish a nonpartisan organization that is an advocate for the interests of working people.
ChrisNYC
@Mnemosyne: Right, I understand about 2010. And, again, I think the GOP is a in deep trouble because of Ryan et al for 2012. I’m not saying AARP is dead or anything. All I’m saying is that this is a recognizable strategy by the GOP, not a one-off or mistake by Ryan. That’s it.
Mnemosyne
@ChrisNYC:
I think you and geg6 are violently agreeing with each other. This definitely was their plan the whole time, but I don’t think they expected this much blow-back. I think this was supposed to boost Ryan as a mover and shaker of the Republican Party, but that also means he’ll be easy to scapegoat.
Chris
@JCT:
This.
I mean, you’re talking about a demographic whose spiritual gurus’ only reaction to the attacks was to go on the air that night and gloat that God had finally struck the cities with his wrath because of all the faggots and feminists. Attacking first responders wasn’t all that much of a stretch.
Emma
ChrisNYC: Several. AMAC (which seems to have been founded by one guy, Daniel C. Weber)and American Seniors are the ones I’m most familiar with.
According to the AARP, during the time they lost 60,000 members, they had 400,000 new members sign up.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Emma:
So people are getting old faster than they are getting mean and stupid? Hmmm, some good news for a change. Maybe Humanity isn’t doomed after all.
johnsmith1882
@Mark S.:
I disagree. They may be deluded, but what we are seeing here is the GOP panicking. They went too far, everybody is on to them, and they are doubling down on their double down. The state legislatures pushing everything through lays this bare. Until Nov 2012, this is their last shot, for a long, long time, so they’re throwing every monkey wrench in every gear cog possible. They drank their own Koolaid, they’re going Galt, it’s the death rattle.
eemom
aaaand, in other Bambi meets Godzilla news, them orange crocodile tears will surely be a-flowin over this one:
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/11/catholic-scholars-letter-boehner/
Emma
ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Hey, I’m turning the miracle age next year and AARP already sent me my invite, so yeah, we are.
urbanmeemaw
@The Dangerman: I just saw Common in a movie with Queen Latifah and I thought he was wonderful. If I sound old and silly it’s because I am. But I loved that movie.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Emma: What does AMAC stand for? Aging Means Animal Chow?
Ash Can
@eemom: Kudos to these Catholic scholars for calling Boehner on his hypocrisy. It’s great to see social-justice Catholics grabbing headlines for once instead of the usual pedophile priests, crooked bishops, anti-abortion/pro-misogyny freaks, and other various and sundry horrors and embarrassments.
Mark S.
@johnsmith1882:
I don’t disagree; I’m just saying they are really stupid. They don’t know anything about policy that can’t be written on a bumper sticker. I’d bet the majority of goopers who voted for Ryan’s plan had no idea what it entailed. That’s how a loon like Ryan gets treated as an intellectual in a party of slack-jawed dullards.
Keith
The GOP’s ” solution” will be to have Fox reject any AARP or other commercial that mentions Medicare. Mark my words.
Stillwater
@Ash Can:
Maybe they could break away and create a Catholics for Jesus sub-sect. Try to get that train running a little straighter.
MikeJ
@Keith: I don’t think this will happen. It’s hard to sell ad time on cable news. Fox will run ads for anybody with the money, especially long term clients that buy *tons* of ads all the time. Some one off liberal group that wants to buy one spot, sure they might turn them down, but AARP is a bread and butter client for a net with an elderly demo.
eemom
@Stillwater:
IANACE, but I think that’s what the Jesuits are supposed to be. Your title IS catchier, though.
maya
There’s a good reason why the GOP, and it’s henchmen, like Simpson, are attacking AARP as being leftist. The current CEO of AARP, A. Barry Rand is black and it’s President, Jennie Chin Hansen, is Asian-American. Therefor, the GOP will most definitively double down until both Rand and Chin-Hansen resign and offer their sincerest apologies to the GOP and the Mercan people for their obvious leftist birth-bias. The GOP is trying to start a racist civil war within AARP, plain and simple.
Carol
@geg6: And they don’t realize that due to the baby boom, over 55 voters oftentimes have siblings that fall just under the limit. I’m 54, and I have a younger brother who’s 50, other siblings who are over 62 and even 70. Those of us who are at the point where medicare may well be an option in the next few years also vote, and our combined votes will crush the Republicans.
James E. Powell
@Mnemosyne:
Really? I thought the Republicans won because the left stayed home because Obama & Rahm betrayed them.
When did the narrative change?
Just Some Fuckhead
@James E. Powell:
Haha
Every day.
General Stuck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I know, you firebaggers cannot make up your minds whether you’re a persecuted minority in the dem party, or all powerful, those coming here before the election declaring they were boycotting the election so Obama and Obots will be sorry.
I don’t think there was a single Obot that seriously believed those threatening to not vote were more than a handful of WATB’s on the internet. The ones that are still here, btw/ A small band of fuckheads, if you ask me.
Just Some Fuckhead
@General Stuck: Have you thought about getting that Obama SEAL Action Figure and fighting it with your dinosaur? Imagine the hours of fun.
tkogrumpy
@The Moar You Know: You are very, very wrong about that. The AARP of which I am a member is quite a liberal hideout for a lot of people, who like my are lifelong leftists.
General Stuck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Nothing compares to chasing you around with the idjit switch. And yer lil buddy Task Farce Ranger. Where is that mental giant anyways?
Mnemosyne
@James E. Powell:
Well, it should have changed once we got actual facts. Whether it did, I don’t know — I never go to FDL (except for Tbogg).
Just Some Fuckhead
@General Stuck:
When you call someone a mental giant, that could literally be anyone.
WaterGirl
I have always thrown away my invitation to join AARP. Does it make sense to join if you’re under 60?
Just Some Fuckhead
@WaterGirl:
They’ve got kinds of great programs, plans and discounts. You just have to be willing to let go of your perceived youth.
General Stuck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
But there is only one Task Farce Ranger
WaterGirl
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Yep. That’s been the sticking point. I will sign up next time they send me something. Are all the programs, plans and discounts insurance related?
James E. Powell
@Mnemosyne:
Actual facts? Now you’re being shrill.
All snark aside, I am still not convinced that the Republican assault on Medicare/Medicaid will kill them in 2012. I’d be willing to bet $100, right now, that they will keep the house and break even in the senate.
General Stuck
@WaterGirl:
They have all kinds of money discounts for stuff. I’m getting ready to join to get the road side assistance plan from planning to do some traveling around this summer.
Just Some Fuckhead
@WaterGirl:
No.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@kdaug:
For the win.
AxelFoley
How dumb can the GOP be by pissing off old white folks? If anyone can claim to be a party’s base (pay attention, professional lefties) it’s old white people in regards to the GOP.
Let’s keep handing the GOP shovels.
AxelFoley
@The Moar You Know:
“What is best in life?”
“To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.”
AxelFoley
@dmsilev:
Dammit, dammit, dammit!
I shoulda known someone here was gonna beat me to that!
ARRRGH!
Keith
@MikeJ: Only thing is that FoxNews *has* rejected anti-GOP ads on quite a few occasions under the guise of them considering them to be false. They will claim that any ad that says the Ryan plan “ends Medicare as we know it” to be false.
gwangung
@Keith: I think you miss MikeJ’s point. Sure, they’ve rejected ads before…but have they rejected ACCOUNTS? Particularly the multi-million dollar account of AARP, who places multiple ads over years?
I think Fox needs AARP more than AARP needs Fox…..
bob h
I’m seeing primetime TV ads in NYC Metro from AARP slamming plans to cut Medicare and SS. AARP is not acting like they have been intimidated.