For the last few days, WPRO host Dan Yorke has seemed exasperated any time the Congressional District 1 race comes up. He feels the Doherty campaign has had a flawed strategy by letting David Cicilline go around the state and tell seniors that Doherty will take away their Medicare. Cicilline says that Doherty sides with the Ryan Plan and will turn it into a voucher plan.
Dan Yorke's opinion on the response should by to have Doherty stand up and point blank tell everyone that he will protect Medicare and social security benefits, but a little more publicly and forcefully than he already has. It's almost become a running joke with Dan as each time the subject comes up, they even play some background music to a Meatloaf song.
With the main chorus being Dan's refrain, "I would do anything for love, but I won't do THAT" with that being taking away Medicare or social security benefits. Well Dan, you got your wish.
According to a news release from the Doherty campaign:
Brendan Doherty, candidate for Congress from Rhode Island’s First Congressional District will hold a news conference Monday morning in front of Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket to unveil his iron clad pledge to protect Medicare and Social Security benefits.There we have it. Two birds with one stone. Dan Yorke should now be a happy camper and the major Cicilline campaign strategy to date (scare seniors) seems to now be out the window.
Brendan’s opponent, David Cicilline, has used deceptive scare tactics to misrepresent Brendan’s positions which will protect Medicare and Social Security on into the future. Among other things, Brendan’s pledge includes his opposition to cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Oh they'll switch gears. I'm suspecting that one new angle will be that Brendan Doherty wants to repeal Obamacare. But what's interesting there is that from what I've seen and read, he seems more interested in fixing Obamacare than just letting it languish on in its current state. One example is that Doherty has said he's opposed to is the $716 billion in cuts to Medicare. But yet, David Cicilline is in favor of that cut through his support for Obamacare. Rather than "working hard in Washington every day" like David Cicilline tells us he does, he just goes along for the ride with then-Speaker Pelosi, the author of "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."
What this is really going to come down to is which campaign the voters trust. We have on one hand, Brendan Doherty telling us what he would do if he's elected to Congress. On the other hand, we have David Cicilline telling us what Brendan Doherty would do if elected to Congress. It's a little bit of a he said/he said and we simply have to choose one side to trust. We need to figure out which one is telling us the truth. Brendan Doherty or David Cicilline? Hmm.
"iron clad pledge to protect Medicare and Social Security benefits."
Now that David Cicilline's biggest lie about Brendan Doherty has been abruptly ripped apart, can we please talk about issues and character?
"we simply have to choose one side to trust."
Yeah. As soon as I re-watch DC's glib assurances of two years ago about Providence's fiscal condition, I'll get back to you on that ...
Posted by: Monique at September 23, 2012 8:22 AMDoherty waited far too long to come out with this position statement. This should have been explicitly stated back in April at the latest. This announcement at this point makes him look reactionary and defensive.
Just one person's opinion.
Posted by: Russell Moore at September 24, 2012 11:26 PM