Ryan Plan Is Litmus Test in GOP Senate Primaries

Politico reports:

Republicans are already on notice that Democrats plan to use Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposal as a key 2012 wedge issue.

What they didn’t expect, however, was that Ryan’s blueprint would also turn out to be a polarizing force within GOP primaries.

Across the Senate election map, in swing state after swing state, the House Budget Committee chairman’s plan for overhauling the popular entitlement program is emerging as a serious point of tension, a pick-your-poison proposition, forcing GOP candidates to choose between the narrow dictates of conservative primary voters and the imperatives of the broader general election.

“I think it’s emerging as the litmus test,” said California-based GOP operative Jason Roe. “The entitlement challenge is not going away anytime soon. It really is going to be the barometer for the conservative orthodoxy to measure your commitment to doing the heavy lifting. This is almost like the Grover Norquist no-tax pledge.”