The talking points arrived two hours after the Paul Ryan pick was announced. Memo: 'Don't say entitlement reform'

It only took two hours after the Paul Ryan vice presidential announcement for Republican congressional candidates to get their talking points on how to spin the Ryan budget and Medicare attacks.

“Do not say: ‘entitlement reform,’ ‘privatization,’ ‘every option is on the table,’” the National Republican Congressional Committee said in an email memo. “Do say: ‘strengthen,’ ‘secure,’ ‘save,’ ‘preserve, ‘protect.’”


The email read like a warning shot, alerting Republicans that they would soon face a barrage of Medicare-themed attacks and telling them they needed to be ready for the scrutiny that was to come. The internal email, obtained by POLITICO, was a clear and immediate sign that Republicans knew Ryan could create trouble down ballot for GOP candidates in tight congressional races.

“Predictably,” the NRCC wrote, Democrats are “already blasting Mitt Romney’s selection of Congressman Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate. Expect your boss to get questions from reporters on how this selection of a fellow House member impacts your race.”

The memo — the first of at least a half-dozen the NRCC has sent out to campaigns since the Ryan pick was made public that have been obtained by POLITICO — sheds light on the lengths to which Republicans are going to coach their members and candidates to navigate Democratic efforts to tie them to Ryan and his controversial plan to rewrite entitlement laws.

While Republicans insist they aren’t panicking over the Ryan-centered assault, they also acknowledge that their effectiveness in pushing back will play a large role in determining their success in defending their House majority.

On Sunday afternoon, Mike Shields, the NRCC’s political director, sent out a follow-up memo that aimed to provide greater detail into how to fend off attacks. The message — which had the subject line “Stay on offense on Medicare” — encouraged candidates to highlight President Barack Obama’s health care law and its proposed cuts to Medicare.

The memo included a link to a 10-minute, 27-second YouTube video Shields had created in which he discusses a 2011 Nevada special House election Republicans had won. The race, Shields argues in the video, demonstrated how Republicans can successfully fight back against Medicare-centered attacks and “chase” Democrats “off the field on something they want to talk about.”

The bottom line, Shields says: Don’t be afraid to talk about entitlements.

“We knew that voters are inclined to believe that Republicans don’t like Medicare and aren’t inclined to support it. We always start out with a deficit on the issue of Medicare against Democrats and so part of the other training thing we have to do is to get Republicans to understand they still need to talk about Medicare,” Shields says in the video. “It’s not in the zone they normally want to talk about but that we need to feel positive about how we go about talking about how we preserve Medicare.

“We knew that Medicare attacks that weren’t responded to were going to hurt, and we can’t just walk away from this or play defense or even ignore the issue,” he adds. “We need to do something about it. We also knew that Republicans had a strong message that’s capable of fighting Medicare attacks.”

The video shows detailed polling data and walks viewers through TV ads that the NRCC and nowRep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) ran. It also includes spots that Democrats aired in the race.

On Monday afternoon, Shields released a follow-up memo reinforcing the need for pushback and describing his suggested line of attack.

“I’m going to tell you something that the chattering class in DC doesn’t want to know: we want this fight,” Shields writes in the memo. “Any opportunity we have to talk about ObamaCare, and the $700 billion in Medicare cuts that paid for it, is an opportunity that we will never pass up. Democrats are asking us for it.”

Some Republicans seem to be heeding the advice. Republican candidate Keith Rothfus, who is seeking a western Pennsylvania seat, for example, sent out a press release Monday morning, promising to save “Medicare for our seniors by repealing Obamacare.”

But the Republican coaching also seems designed to soothe nervous Republicans who may have been left jolted by the Ryan pick.

“If you listen to reporters and the Democrats (sometimes there isn’t much difference) the sky is about to start falling on Republicans because of Medicare,” Jeff Burton, the NRCC’s deputy executive director, wrote in a Monday morning missive to campaigns. “We’ll see about that.”