The first federal election of 2011 is the race to replace Rep. Chris Lee, the Republican who resigned after Gawker published sexy photos from his come-ons to a woman who didn’t happen to be his wife. Kathy Hochul is the Democrat, and she doesn’t have the advantages that Bill Owens had when he narrowly won the 2009 free-for-all in NY-23 – her opponent, Jane Corwin, has locked up the Conservative Party’s nomination, denying it to a Tea Party candidate.
So Hochul tries to make the race about the Ryan budget.
The “essentially end Medicare” line is sourced to Naftali Bendavid’s curtain-raiser on the budget that ran the day before Ryan introduced it. For a contrast, listen to the ad that the NRCC is running against Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., a pretty safe incumbent whose district might be tweaked by redistricting.
No mention of what’s actually in the Ryan budget! Ross is scorched for opposing all of the budget plans, which means, like every Republican, he opposed the three Democratic/progressive budgets, with their big tax hikes. But we don’t hear what’s in the budget, or hear about Ryan.
