Candidates spar on health care, education

Pres­i­dent Barack Obama pauses as he speaks dur­ing a cam­paign event at Truc­kee Mead­ows Com­mu­nity Col­lege, Tues­day, in Reno, Nev. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Car­olyn Kaster)

BETH FOUHY

Asso­ci­ated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. — Dif­fer­ences between Mitt Rom­ney and Paul Ryan’s posi­tions — this time on hot-button social issues — were on dis­play Wednes­day as the GOP ticket found itself dragged into a debate over abortion.

The vice pres­i­den­tial can­di­date empha­sized anew that Rom­ney is the nom­i­nee, brush­ing aside dif­fer­ences in their records.

“I’m proud of my pro-life record. And I stand by my pro-life record in Con­gress. It’s some­thing I’m proud of. But Mitt Rom­ney is the top of the ticket and Mitt Rom­ney will be pres­i­dent and he will set the pol­icy of the Rom­ney admin­is­tra­tion,” Ryan told a Penn­syl­va­nia TV station.

Rom­ney does not oppose abor­tion in cases of rape and incest or if it will save the mother’s life, while Ryan does oppose abor­tion in cases of rape and incest.

Since choos­ing Ryan as his run­ning mate, Rom­ney has been dogged by ques­tions about how his own views dif­fer from the Wis­con­sin congressman’s. Ryan is the archi­tect of a con­tro­ver­sial bud­get blue­print that would dra­mat­i­cally change Medicare, and after his selec­tion Democ­rats imme­di­ately began try­ing to tie Rom­ney to his new No. 2’s plan. The likely Repub­li­can nom­i­nee has said his plan is dif­fer­ent, but largely refused to out­line specifics of the dif­fer­ences. Instead, he’s empha­siz­ing what he calls shared prin­ci­ples and insist­ing that Ryan joined the Rom­ney ticket, and not the other way around.

The focus on abor­tion comes in the wake of com­ments from Mis­souri Sen­ate can­di­date Todd Akin, who is chal­leng­ing Demo­c­ra­tic Sen. Claire McCaskill. Asked in an inter­view aired Sun­day if abor­tion should be legal in cases of rape, Akin said: “If it’s a legit­i­mate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

In the inter­view, Ryan called the state­ments “out­ra­geous” and “over the pale.”

Akin has refused to heed calls to step down — includ­ing one from Rom­ney — and now would need a court order to leave the race. He has until Sept. 25 to do so; after that point, he would have no way to remove his name from the ballot.

Ryan, a col­league of Akin’s in the House, called the Mis­souri con­gress­man to urge him to bow out of the Sen­ate race, Akin told NBC News on Wednesday.

Ryan “did give me a call, and he felt that I had to make a deci­sion, but he advised me that it would be good for me to step down,” Akin told NBC’s Today Show.

The ques­tions about abor­tion were over­shad­ow­ing the GOP ticket’s cam­paign events in Iowa, Vir­ginia and North Car­olina Wednes­day, as they were seek­ing to attack Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s stands on Medicare and again min­i­mize the dif­fer­ences between Rom­ney and Ryan on that subject.

That comes in a new TV adver­tise­ment link­ing Obama’s divi­sive health care over­haul to cuts in Medicare. The ad, titled “Nothing’s Free,” asserts that Obama raided $716 bil­lion from Medicare in order to pay for his health care law. It’s the first ad Romney’s cam­paign has run focus­ing on health care since the Supreme Court upheld Obama’s fed­eral man­date in June

Rom­ney has promised to roll back the Medicare spend­ing cuts approved under Obama, while Ryan kept the cuts in his bud­get pro­pos­als. The cam­paign did not say where the health care ad would run.

Rom­ney was fly­ing Wednes­day morn­ing from Texas, where he held cam­paign fundrais­ers Tues­day, to Iowa. Dur­ing remarks in a key Mid­west­ern state, he planned to focus on the increases in the nation’s debt dur­ing Obama’s term.

Ryan, less than two weeks into his new role as GOP run­ning mate, was cam­paign­ing in Vir­ginia and North Car­olina and focus­ing Wednes­day on a tax over­haul. The GOP cam­paign says Obama’s calls for let­ting George W. Bush-era tax cuts on peo­ple earn­ing more than $200,000 a year expire at the end of the year would hurt small busi­nesses because many file as individuals.

Obama, mean­while, read­ied for a sec­ond straight day of crit­i­cism on the GOP ticket’s pro­pos­als on edu­ca­tion, an issue that res­onates with middle-class voters.

Obama was cam­paign­ing Wednes­day in Nevada, one of the states hit hard­est by the nation’s eco­nomic slow­down. The pres­i­dent planned to meet with teach­ers at a Las Vegas high school and pro­mote his administration’s plans to make higher edu­ca­tion more afford­able before speak­ing at a larger event at the school.

Cam­paign­ing in Ohio Tues­day, Obama accused Rom­ney of being obliv­i­ous to the bur­dens of pay­ing for col­lege. The president’s cam­paign sees edu­ca­tion as another avenue for link­ing Rom­ney to Ryan’s bud­get, which calls for $115 bil­lion in cuts to the Edu­ca­tion Department.

In a new ad released Wednes­day, the Obama cam­paign sug­gests Ryan’s edu­ca­tion cuts would lead to larger class sizes. A cou­ple fea­tured in the ad bemoans the prospect of increased class size and says Rom­ney “can­not relate” to their desire to have the best pub­lic edu­ca­tion sys­tem for their children.

The ad is run­ning in Vir­ginia and Ohio.’

Posted by AP News on Aug 22 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.