The House passed Republican Paul Ryan’s budget that would end Medicare as we know it and replace it with a privatized system of vouchers. While it is good to know not a single Democrat was actually stupid enough to vote for it, on a purely political level, I’m actually stunned that four Republicans, Walter Jones, Ron Paul, Denny Rehberg and David McKinley, voted against it.

I suspect in 2012 we are going to see a lot of ads from Democrats with some form of this general message:

Republican candidate “X” voted to end Medicare

-or-

Republican candidate “X” voted to privatize Medicare and slash benefits

For basically the entire Republican party, to go, in less than a year, from the very successful political position of being the greater defenders of Medicare, to voting to privatize the program as a way to dramatically slashing benefits, is such a toxic mix of pure cynicism combined with outright political stupidity, I hardly can believe it just happened.

Does no one in Washington read polls anymore?