Representative Greg Walden (R-OR), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, revealed the GOP’s latest messaging plan Wednesday when he blasted President Barack Obama’s new budget proposal as “a shocking attack on seniors.”
Walden made his accusation during an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
“I’ll tell you, when you’re going after seniors the way he’s already done on Obamacare, taken $700 billion out of Medicare to put into Obamacare and now coming back at seniors again, I think you’re crossing that line very quickly here in terms of denying access to seniors for health care in districts like mine certainly and around the country,” Walden said.
Walden’s comments are deeply hypocritical, given his outspoken support for the Ryan budget — which contains the same $716 billion in Medicare savings for which Walden criticizes the president, along with hundreds of billions in additional cuts to Medicaid and other government programs that benefit seniors.
Given Walden’s position as the House Republicans’ election chief, his remarks offer a clear view of the GOP’s likely strategy for the 2014 midterms. After criticizing President Obama for years for refusing to offer sufficient budget cuts, they are now turning around and ripping him for giving in to their demands. Indeed, just five days ago, House Speaker John Boehner was criticizing Obama’s “shocking attack” for not cutting enough.
A similar strategy didn’t work very well for Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and the rest of the Republican Party in the 2012 elections; based on recent polling data finding that Americans trust President Obama far more than Republicans on the economy, it seems unlikely to work in 2014 either.
H/T: Talking Points Memo
