Paul Ryan's Medicare-killing budget is the issue in NY House race -- and he's lost Scott Brown

Senator Scott Brown won't support Paul Ryan's plan to destroy Medicare:

GOP Sen. Scott Brown (Mass.) said Monday he won't support Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) budget when it comes up for a vote in the Senate.

Brown, a centrist who is running for reelection in 2012, said that Ryan's plan helped jumpstart a necessary debate, but that its Medicare reforms go too far.

Now, the question is whether Senate GOPers even want to vote on Ryan's budget.

Tomorrow could be telling. Remember how Scott Brown's election in January of 2010 upended the political landscape in DC? Tomorrow, the same thing could happen in reverse. There's a special election in the upstate New York district vacated by the shirtless Craig's lister, Chris Lee. This is a heavily GOP district and it should be a slam dunk for the Republican candidate, Assemblywoman Jane Corwin. But, it's not. Recent polls have shown that the Democrat, Kathy Hochul, is ahead. From the Buffalo News:

Democrat Kathleen C. Hochul now holds a six-point edge in the race for Congress in the 26th District, the latest poll in the race found late Sunday.

Conducted by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, the poll shows Hochul with 42 percent, Republican Jane L. Corwin with 36 percent and independent Tea Party candidate Jack Davis with 13 percent.

The results closely track those of a Siena Research Institute poll that Saturday showed Hochul up by 4 points.

But unlike the Siena tally, the new poll of 1,106 likely voters shows Hochul with a lead well outside the margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percent. PPP conducted the poll Saturday and Sunday.

The New York Times also reports on another poll from Siena, which found that Medicare is the big issue (thanks to Paul Ryan) -- and the money pouring in from the GOP to save what should be a very safe GOP seat:

New polls show that the Democratic candidate, Kathy Hochul, who was initially considered a long shot, has surged in the final days of the race and is in a dead heat with the Republican, Jane L. Corwin.

The special election on Tuesday — which has attracted millions in advertising dollars from a group tied to Karl Rove, from the United States Chamber of Commerce and from both national parties — has been upended by the debate over Medicare: Voters in the sprawling Buffalo-area district now call it the single most important issue in their decision on which candidate to support, according to the poll, conducted by Siena College.

Paul Ryan's budget could be the path back to power for the Democrats. We knew the House GOPers would overreach. It's just astounding that they did it so quickly and so dramatically.