Senate Democrats led by Patty Murray of Washington and Chuck Schumer of New York have an odd way of looking at things. Murray is chairwoman of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, while Schumer is among the party’s messaging gurus. According to the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, a source familiar with Murray’s and Schumer’s thinking on the stalemated debt-ceiling talks says they fear President Obama will give away their party’s advantage on the Medicare issue. Obama would do so, the source claims Murray and Schumer believe, by agreeing to Medicare reforms in return for Republicans accepting tax increases. “We shouldn’t be giving away our advantage on Medicare. We should be very careful about giving away the biggest advantage we’ve had as Democrats in some time.” In other words, they want to keep entitlement programs like Medicare off-limits to spending cuts, period. If such reasoning strikes you as odd, it should, because the Medicare-cuts horse left the barn more than a year ago. It was none other than Obama and the Democrats who controlled Congress who swung the barn door wide open with $500 billion in spending cuts to Medicare Advantage, massive cuts in Medicare reimbursements to doctors, and big Medicare payroll tax increases to fund Obamacare’s federal takeover of what’s left of the nation’s private health care system. Democrats who think poll data showing them with a clear advantage now over Republicans on Medicare make a huge mistake by assuming most voters won’t wise up to what they did to Medicare with Obamacare when the 2012 election rolls around. (Hint: Many seniors already have.)