Paul Ryan stumped with his 78-year-old mother in Florida over the weekend to help assure voters that he and Mitt Romney will preserve Social Security and Medicare benefits, if elected, according to Politico.

Democrats have targeted their attacks against the vice-presidential candidate on Medicare, zeroing in on his budget plan which proposed converting Medicare's fixed benefit program into a voucher system after the year 2023. Florida and its 29 electoral votes are a must-win for the GOP ticket and with so many voting seniors in the state, Republicans have been working over-time to defend their plans.

Betty Ryan Douglas appeared with her son to show her endorsement as a "Medicare senior in Florida" while Ryan turned the tables and swore he would protect the program from being “used as a piggybank for Obamacare."

From Politico:

Romney and Ryan have attacked President Barack Obama for cuts to the Medicare trust fund to pay for his health care reform, and Ryan hewed to that line today.

Ryan accused the president of “raiding” Medicare to pay for the Affordable Care Act and going back on a promise that so many seniors are counting on. The Obama campaign argues that Ryan and Romney aren’t telling the whole story when it comes to their Medicare reform plans, omitting crucial details that would be unpopular with seniors.

An analysis by the Washington Post, however, finds that Medicare might be a strength for the GOP because their support of reforming the program may be politically preferable to the unpopularity of the Affordable Care Act, the program slandered as "Obamacare." The Democratic strategy of focusing on healthcare may have backfired as the Obama camp finds itself having to account for its own cuts to the program. From Forbes:

There are two other points to bear on this subject. The first is that Ryan’s Medicare cuts were solely used to extend the solvency of the Medicare trust fund, and not to fund new spending elsewhere. By contrast, Obamacare cut $716 billion from Medicare in order to fund $1.9 trillion in new health care spending, through the law’s expansion of Medicaid and its new subsidized exchanges.

The second point is that Mitt Romney is not campaigning on the Ryan budget. He’s campaigning on his own budget, which fully repeals Obamacare, and eliminates that law’s Medicare cuts.

Analysts have read the tea leaves differently on the other side of the aisle, however. Ryan's record of voting against women's issues like the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act makes him vulnerable to attacks that his voting record and proposed budget will disporportionately hurt women. From the Hill:

Who benefits from the Romney-Ryan attack against Medicare? Insurers. Who loses? Seniors. Many of whom are women. Romney and Ryan claim they will hurt tomorrow's seniors, not today's. And what if they win?

Medicaid? A cheap attack that would impose cruel pain, especially against poor Moms and poor children. Welfare? It takes great coldness and dishonesty to oppose job programs and then demonize the jobless poor, demanding they take jobs that Romney destroyed and Ryan opposed.

Medicare was the hot topic on the Sunday talk show circuit but the debate was handled by campaign operatives. Both presidential candidates sat out the Sunday campaign circuit to attend church with their families.

Follow Neon Tommy's coverage of the 2012 presidential campaign.

Reach Executive Producer Dawn Megli here.