Just when it seemed the presidential political debate surrounding healthcare would simply be whether to repeal or preserve the Affordable Care Act, Mitt Romney brought Paul Ryan into the mix as his pick for VP.
From the Republican standpoint, this was supposed to be an election - needed to be an election - about the economy and jobs, areas where President Obama is clearly vulnerable. But a funny thing happened on the way to the economy discussion: Mitt Romney decided to bring forward Ryan, the architect of a highly controversial plan to revamp Medicare.
"I think Gov. Romney chose Ryan despite his Medicare plan and not because of it," said Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis with the Harvard School of Public Health. "Since the major issue in the election is the economy, if you had a choice you wouldn't want to spend all of the time talking about Medicare."
If that is the case, it appears the Romney campaign may have made a major miscalculation. Less than a week after the official announcement of Ryan as Romney's pick for the underside of the ticket, a tracking poll conducted by Kaiser Family Foundation showed 73 percent of respondents saying Medicare was "very important" or "extremely important" in determining their votes.
The choice of Ryan seems to have been one to solidify the Republican base. An energized base has always been important in presidential elections, but especially this year, as polls have shown the portion of undecided voters is around 6 percent, or about half the number who were undecided in 2008. Ryan's 2011 tough love budget proposal won fans among all Republicans, especially the far right and those affiliated with the Tea Party. His no nonsense, no new taxes fiscal approach was sure to play well with this branch of party, which has long been tepid, at best, in their support of Romney. He doesn't just want their votes. He needs them.
Further, if you anticipate the election will be about the budget and the economy, who better to have campaigning at your side than the Chairman of the House Budget Committee? Sounds like a good plan, right?
Until you consider the senior vote.
"By selecting congressman Ryan, there are a lot advantageous things not dealing with Medicare about him: young, leader of the conservative wing of the party, from the Midwest. But when you picked him, you get this one issue and what's difficult for Gov. Romney is this is a group that is already leaning to vote Republican," Blendon said. "This is his group and they are high turnout voters. There are only a small number of things that might affect this group, a percentage of them, to change their vote and those things are changing Social Security and Medicare."
It wouldn't be unexpected, therefore, for Democrats to bring up the Ryan Medicare plan as often as they can. While Romney spent much of the week after tapping Ryan trying to minimize the damage by saying it is not his plan for Medicare, he's likely saddled with it for the rest of the election.
And that's bad news. According to polls from June 2011, after Ryan unveiled his premium subsidy, privatization plan for Medicare, a CNN poll found 58 percent of people opposed the idea and, even worse, 74 percent of seniors opposed it.
There is still time for Romney to turn the tide around. But if Medicare even shares time on the front burner with the economy as top issues in the 2012 campaign between now and election day, it could very likely cost him the election.
And that would be a cruel irony.
After all, it was the strong negative sentiment toward Obamacare that allowed Republicans to take over the house in the 2010 election - with the senior vote favoring Republicans by a whopping 21 percent margin.
Now Romney's selection of Ryan could give back a healthy portion of that senior advantage and could ultimately lead to his downfall in November.