Adler picked what must have seemed like a middle course: He bucked his party leaders and opposed reform on the grounds that it didn't go far enough to contain health-care costs. It was a lose-lose proposition, especially in an election fueled by tea-party hysteria, and Adler lost.
Now his replacement, Republican Jon Runyan, finds himself in a similar situation. The House GOP, led by Young Gun Rep. Paul Ryan, passed a budget April 15 that would transform fee-for-service Medicare into a voucher program. Freshman Runyan decided to follow the leaders and voted for the controversial Medicare proposal.
Republicans around the country are getting smacked by the backlash from their vote, and polls show seniors overwhelmingly against the Ryan plan. None of this should come as a surprise. According to Politico, House GOP members were warned in advance of their vote by their own pollsters.
The poll numbers on the plan were so toxic — nearly as bad as those of President Barack Obama’s health reform bill at the nadir of its unpopularity — that staffers with the National Republican Congressional Committee warned leadership, “You might not want to go there” in a series of tense pre-vote meetings.
But go there Republicans did, en masse and with rhetorical gusto — transforming the political landscape for 2012, giving Democrats a new shot at life and forcing the GOP to suddenly shift from offense to defense.
Runyan seems to be dealing with the backlash by avoiding it, scheduling no townhalls during the House's considerable down time since the vote. But he'll need to face his constituents sometime. When he does, he'll have one thing going for him: Unlike health care reform, the proposed Medicare change has "virtually no chance of becoming law," according to Politico.
Maybe Runyan can explain to voters why the GOP wastes so much time and effort on measures that will never become law.
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