POLITICO.COM : "In a statement congratulating Kathy Hochul on her election, President Obama conspicuously refrained from mentioning Medicare or the Ryan budget, which he’s criticized in the past. Instead, Obama said that he and Hochul “both believe that we need to create jobs, grow our economy and reduce the deficit in order to out-compete other nations and win the future"

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"The idea that Democrats might have a shot at winning back the House is no longer a laughing matter" - "The chance that the GOP could lose 24 seats next year – and with them, control of the House — still seems remote. But unlike a few months ago, it no longer seems like an impossibility".

"Medicare wasn’t the sole issue behind Kathy Hochul’s upset victory in a New York special election Tuesday night, but strategists in both parties say it was an important force"

POLITICO.COM
Have Democrats cracked the code for 2012?
By ALEXANDER BURNS
May 25, 2011


Have Democrats cracked the code for 2012?


Some excerpts :

But after two years of getting pummeled over spending and the size of government, Democrats now appear to have found a political weapon that’s capable of evening out the fight: Medicare.

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Yet Hochul wasn’t exactly fighting on even ground, either: Republicans hold a registration edge in the 26th District and John McCain won the area in 2008 by 6 percentage points. She also was outspent by the wealthy Corwin and Republican outside groups.

To Hochul supporters, there was no question what turned the tide of the campaign. At the Democrat’s election night celebration at a UAW hall in Amherst, an elated crowd chanted, “Medicare,” over and over again as Hochul declared victory.

“We had the issues on our side,” Hochul told her supporters, asking rhetorically: “Did we not have the right issues on our side?”

Hochul’s almost single-minded focus on entitlements — Democrat might just dub her the congresswoman from Medicare — accomplished a few key goals: It put her on the right side of seniors. It forced Corwin to fight the election on Democratic-friendly ground. Most of all, it gave Hochul a way of pushing back on the GOP’s popular fiscal conservative message — without losing the independent voters who loathe excessive government spending.

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Rather than defending the federal budget, writ large, Hochul cast the debate over spending entirely in terms of one of the most beloved major programs on the books.

By focusing on Medicare, Democrats say, Hochul and other candidates can make a larger argument about Republican priorities and what the GOP is willing to cut in Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan’s much-touted budget plan.

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“Republicans like to pretend that they are doing something noble, something fair — in the interest of asking all Americans to sacrifice,” said Alixandria Lapp, executive director of the pro-Democratic House Majority PAC, which invested heavily in the race. “They’re not asking oil and gas companies to sacrifice. They’re not asking multimillionaires to sacrifice. Medicare’s going to be a very important part of that overall message and a fundamental referendum for the 2012 election.”

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, a Democrat, told POLITICO that Hochul’s win “shows the Democratic message resonates with independents. I do think it changes the debate a bit.”

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