Some of Pinellas County's most prolific GOP fundraisers came to the Club at Treasure Island on Saturday afternoon to meet and greet Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Congressman who in just a week has become one of the most famous men in America after being named by Mitt Romney to be his running mate.
While hundreds doled out $2,500 for an individual seat in the club (or $5,000 for a couple), the high rollers dished out $25,000 or $50,000 to meet up close and personal with the new celebrity in a special VIP reception.
Meanwhile around 70 critics of the Romney-Ryan ticket stood across the street on the Treasure Island Causeway to protest Ryan's visit, while roughly two dozen GOP supporters held their signs as they shared the median on the northern side of the the Treasure Island Causeway.
One of those protesters was St. Petersburg House Democrat Rick Kriseman, who said he still can't believe Romney selected Ryan to be his running mate. "He's telling seniors in the state you're not valued," the soon to be departing state legislator said of Romney's mindset in selecting the House Budget Chairman whose budgets call for major spending cuts while giving tax breaks to the wealthy – and also calls on changing Medicare into a voucher-like system for those under 55.
But the theory that the Ryan pick will automatically doom the Republicans in Florida this November may not be so obvious as some Democrats believe. A Rasmussen poll taken earlier this week showed that Floridians are more afraid of President Obama's health care reform legislation than they are the Ryan Medicare proposal, and when seniors were polled, the gap in favor of the Ryan plan was even more dramatic.
Kriseman says it's up to elected Democrats like himself to make sure the voters know the facts about Ryan's plan for Medicare. He acknowledges that Democrats lost the rhetorical debate early when it came to President Obama's health care bill.
This article appears in Aug 16-22, 2012.