A Star Is Born

---

Regardless of the outcome on November 6th, I think it’s fair to say that a certain congressman from Wisconsin is going to be a household name for many years to come. I would like to see him spend a few years as a VPOTUS or governor before trying for the top spot though.

Although I don’t agree with Paul Ryan on every issue, he is clearly not the “zombie-eyed granny-starver” he has been portrayed to be. That won’t stop the Vile Progs from trying to Palinize him though.

I feel sorry for his wife and kids. He better block MSNBC on his television at home.

---

---

Are Vile Progs Really That Stupid?

---

HuffPoop:

Paul Ryan Stimulus Funds Requests Show VP Nominee Asked For More Than Previously Reported

During Thursday night’s vice presidential debate, Vice President Joe Biden attacked Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) for criticizing the president’s stimulus act despite having sent two separate requests for stimulus funds for his district.

Biden was wrong. Ryan sent at least four requests.

A Freedom of Information Act request for correspondence between Ryan’s office and the Environmental Protection Agency, filed by The Huffington Post, unearthed two additional instances in which the Wisconsin Republican petitioned for American Recovery Act funds. In addition, there were many other occasions in which the GOP vice presidential nominee asked the EPA for grant money for projects in Wisconsin’s 1st District, which encompasses Ryan’s hometown of Janesville and has a slight Democratic lean. Combined, the letters muddy Ryan’s claim that the stimulus wasn’t helpful and that government spending, more broadly, doesn’t assist small businesses.

The letters, Ryan’s spokesman Brendan Buck said, were sent as part of the congressman’s basic responsibility to advocate on behalf of his district. “Part of being a congressman is vouching for constituents and helping them navigate the federal bureaucracy when asked,” he said.

But the letters’ language reveals a congressman who was involved in reviewing the applications and determining that taxpayer money could be useful economically. Moreover, the direct petitioning of the EPA could prove awkward for the Republican ticket, owing to the insistence among many in the GOP that the agency is a hindrance and should be eliminated.

[...]

Many of these correspondences were in line with what virtually every lawmaker does in carrying out his or her constituent duties. But as Biden charged in Thursday night’s debate, for Ryan — who has taken a hard line against both the stimulus and government spending in general — the requests have opened him up to charges of hypocrisy and insincerity.

“I love that,” Biden said. “This was such a bad program, and he writes me a letter saying, writes the Department of Energy a letter saying, `The reason we need this stimulus, it will create growth and jobs.’ His words. And now he’s sitting here looking at me.”

---

Your family (parents, siblings and kids) decides to take a vacation together. The choices are a trip to Disneyland or a cruise. The cost is the same either way. You vote for the cruise. Disneyland wins.

Do you still go on the vacation?

There is nothing hypocritical about a congressman opposing a spending bill and then seeking some of the money for his/her district when the bill passes anyway. Imagine if only those congressmen who voted in favor of spending were allowed to claim some for their constituents!

And if you’re writing a request for money, do you say “We don’t need it and we’re just gonna waste it but we want it anyway?” Hell no, you write about how much you need it and how much it will help.

BTW – It is not unusual for staff members to prepare correspondence for their boss to read and sign. Some bosses trust their staff and just sign routine items that are presented to them. Some bosses are so good they sign stuff without ever making it to the office that day.

---

Hey Girl, It’s Debate Time Open Thread

Here we go! It’s that time of the week again. Who was the genius who scheduled one debate a week for the final four weeks? Bet Team Obama is regretting that now.

Anyway, I’m watching on C-SPAN, per usual. I’ve got my trusty 12 pack of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and I’ll be drinking on the following cues:

• Every time Paul Ryan smiles
• Every time Joe Biden chuckles
• Every time Martha Raddatz rolls her eyes
• For every mention of Medicare
• For every mention of abortion or “War on Women”

Feel free to add your own drinking rules in comments. This is an open thread.

Sarah Says “Go Rogue!”

---

Weakly Standard:

Palin to Romney-Ryan: ‘Go Rogue’

“With so much at stake in this election, both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan should ‘go rogue’ and not hold back from telling the American people the true state of our economy and national security,” says Palin. “They need to continue to find ways to break through the filter of the liberal media to communicate their message of reform.”

Palin also suggests that Romney and Ryan can be responsible for an epiphany on this country’s fiscal standing. “America desperately needs to have a ‘come to Jesus’ moment in discussing our big dysfunctional, disconnected, and debt-ridden federal government,” says Palin.

“It is nothing short of appalling that President Obama couldn’t even remember how much our national debt is during his interview with David Letterman the other night. Even my 10-year-old daughter knows that it’s $16 trillion, and unlike Obama, she’s not responsible for adding trillions to it. Obama casually told America that we don’t have to worry about our debt in the ‘short term.’ Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan need to ask him how long that ‘short term’ will last.”

---

Well that would certainly be historic.

I’m torn here.

With all due respect to the former governor, it might be better to wait until after the election before they go hog wild with that honesty stuff. I’m all in favor of our politicians telling us the truth, but history shows that too much honesty can be hazardous to their careers.

I don’t mean they should lie to people. There’s just some things you don’t share on a first date.

---

Paul Ryan addresses the Values Voter Summit

---

I don’t agree with everything he says here but I thought this part was awesome:

It is true that President Obama had a lot of problems not of his own making. But he also came in with one-party rule, and the chance to do everything of his own choosing. The Obama economic agenda failed, not because it was stopped, but because it was passed.

And here is what we got: Prolonged joblessness across the country. Twenty-three million Americans struggling to find work. Family income in decline. Fifteen percent of Americans living in poverty.

The record is so uniformly bad that maybe you’ve noticed something: President Obama himself almost never even uses the word “record,” – that is, except when he’s trying to trade on the record of Bill Clinton. In his convention speech, the President never once said that simple word, “record.”

He didn’t say the word “stimulus,” either, because he wasted $831 billion of borrowed money. At a time of mass unemployment, he didn’t even say “unemployment,” because we’re in the slowest recovery since the Great Depression. And by the way, he didn’t use the word “recovery,” either – never mind that recovery was what all America expected from Barack Obama.

He wants us to forget all of these things, and lately he’s been trying out a new tactic. It’s a classic Barack Obama straw man: If anyone dares to point out the facts of his record, why then, they’re just being negative and pessimistic about the country. The new straw man is people hoping for the decline of America.

These parts were pretty good too:

His whole case these days is basically asking us to forget what he promised four years ago, and focus instead on his new promises. That’s a fast move to get around accountability. He made those ringing promises to get elected.

Without them, he wouldn’t be president. And now he acts as if it is unfair to measure his performance against his own words. But here’s the question: If Barack Obama’s promises weren’t good then, what good are they now?

If we renew the contract, we will get the same deal – with only one difference: In a second term, he will never answer to you again.

Everyone knows that President Obama inherited a bad economy. And four months from now, when Mitt Romney is sworn in as president, he will inherit a bad economy.

But here’s the difference. When a Romney-Ryan administration takes office, we will also take responsibility. Instead of dividing up the wealth, our new president will get America creating wealth again.

---

But don’t take my word for it. Watch it for yourself.

---

I have officially changed my mind

---

Ryan: Don’t interfere with legalized medical pot

Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan says the federal government shouldn’t interfere with states that have legalized medical marijuana.

The Wisconsin congressman tells KRDO-TV in Colorado Springs that he personally doesn’t approve of medical marijuana laws. But he says that states should have the right to choose whether to legalize the drug for medical purposes.

In response to a reporter’s question, Ryan said: “It’s up to Coloradans to decide.”

[...]

The Obama administration at first signaled that it wouldn’t interfere with state-sanctioned marijuana distribution. But the Justice Department has since angered marijuana activists by shutting down dispensaries in California and Colorado.

---

That’s it. I have officially changed my mind. I am voting for Paul Ryan.

---

Isn’t an “incomplete” what you get for not showing up?

---

When asked what grade he would give himself, President Empty Chair said “incomplete.” That is really pathetic.

Paul Ryan: “Four Years Into A Presidency And It’s Incomplete?”

“The president is asking people just to be patient with him,” Republican Party vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan said on CBS’s “This Morning” today about Obama’s grade for himself. “Look, Charlie, the kind of recession we have, we should be bouncing out of it creating jobs. We’re not creating jobs near the pace [we] could.”

“That’s why we’re offering big solutions to the big problems we have today and I would just say, if you take a look at the president’s policies he calls them ‘investments.’ It’s borrowing money and spending money through Washington, picking winners and losers. Spending money on favorite, you know, people like Solyndra or Fisker. Picking winners and losers in the economy through spending, through tax breaks, through regulations does not work,” Ryan observed.

“If that kind of economics work, we would be entering a golden age along with Greece,” Ryan said of Obama’s spending policies. “So I think the ‘incomplete’ speaks for itself and that is why I think that we are going to win this and get this country back on the right track because we’re offering bold solutions.”

---

Fair or unfair, Presidents are graded on four year terms. If they perform well during the first one we give them a second. And yes, Obama did inherit a big mess. But he was the One who had to win NOW, NOW, NOW! It was “his time.” Remember how Michelle told us we would not get a second chance if he didn’t win in 2008?

When a losing team gets a new coach, that coach gets a few years to rebuild the team. But after 3 1/2 seasons if the team is still losing it’s time to try someone new.

Why should we “stay the course” if the course isn’t working?

---

---

La-La-La I can’t hear you!

---

I found the above graphic at Hot Air. I found this at Rathole of Bitterness:

I’m am thinning out my Facebook friends list rapidly of people I knew around 4 years ago that I thought supported my vision–not the Romney/Ryan vision–because it is also the vision of Bill and Hillary Clinton. I’m all fine with the support of third party candidates but any one that tries to send me propaganda that Romney is a feminist based on hiring a few women years ago back in Massachusetts and therefor deserves my vote can frankly sell their frigging uterus and announce themselves a neutered slave imho. You’re going to be deleted from contact with me on Twitter and Facebook and you’re not going to be very welcome here either. I will not watch everything I care about–our immigrant heritage, our appreciation for the rights of minorities, women, GLBT communities, and others and our heritage of doing right by the least among us–be destroyed by greedy Vulture Capitalists who lie. I don’t care how mad you are at Obama, if you’re encouraging this group of race-baiting, women-hating, middle class destroying, religiously intolerant Republicans then be prepared to axed from my list and be moderated into byte hell here at Sky Dancing.

---

I have seen several lefty blogs recently announcing a “If you can’t say something bad then don’t say anything” policy in regards to Romney/Ryan. I haven’t noticed any similar policy on Wingnut blogs regarding Obama.

It’s pretty bad when your ideology is so weak you can’t stand to hear anything contrary.

Bill and Hillary are never afraid to debate anyone.

---

Hope is fading fast

---

College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life. – Paul Ryan

---

---

Fact-checking the fact-checkers

---

The Obama campaign whipped out the above video to prove that Paul Ryan is a dirty, rotten, no-good fibber.

Guy Benson has the response:

(1) They begin with video of CNN reporters discussing accusations of Ryan’s “lies.” This is proof that the Obama campaign sent out a lot of angry emails, and nothing else.

(2) Medicare – Sorry, guys, but it is 100 percent true that Obamacare raided $716 Billion from Medicare to pay for itself. It does cut benefits to current seniors. And Paul Ryan’s plan took the president’s Medicare “savings,” and re-routed them back into Medicare to shore up the program. Mitt Romney’s plan would undo those cuts altogether. Obama took those cuts and used them to pay for Obamacare. [...]

(3) The GM Plant – Part of the factory Ryan mentioned was shut down under Bush, despite the initial GM bailout (which Senator Obama supported). The plant finally fully closed in April of 2009, during Obama’s presidency, as this report clearly states. Obama’s problem is that he showed up and made empty promises to pander for votes. Ryan never said Obama was personally responsible for the plant’s closure, but he accurately stated that it closed down within a year of candidate Obama’s hope-filled speech and remains closed today. Obama goes on and on about “saving” the auto industry and his economic recovery. That boarded-up Janesville plant tells a different story.

(4) The Stimulus – Pointing out that Paul Ryan asked that his district receive a slice of a giant, wasteful pie after it was passed — and despite his opposition — is at worst an instance of hypocrisy. It does not disprove anything that Ryan said in his speech, and it does not change the empirical fact that Barack Obama’s borrowed stimulus has utterly failed based on the metrics for success Obama himself set out for it.

(5) The debt commission – What Ryan said is absolutely correct. The Obama ad quotes Chris Wallace, who notes that Ryan was on that commission and voted against it. True. He refused to abide the section maintaining Obamacare, and voted no on its final findings. Still, he was intimately involved in the group’s deliberations and proposed solutions. Not fully happy with the final outcome, he went on to craft two budgets of his own, with numerous elements based on the Simpson-Bowles framework. The commission’s Democratic co-chairman (Bowles of Simpson-Bowles) has praised Ryan’s proposals to the hilt. Barack Obama, who convened the commission in the first place after deriding commissions on the campaign trail, completely ignored its recommendations and proceeded to propose to wildly reckless, debt-busting budgets that received a total of zero votes in either house of Congress. Correctly asserting that Ryan opposed the final Simpson-Bowles recommendations is no way absolves Obama for his demonstrable abdication of leadership on these issues. It’s more smoke and mirrors — and more petty Obama blame, another central theme of Ryan’s address.

(6) Chris Matthews called the speech “nasty.” Stop the presses!

---

I love the smell of desperation in the morning. It smells like . . . victory.

Until Sarah Palin came along I don’t recall ever seeing an opposing campaign spend so much time and effort trying to discredit a vice-presidential candidate. At least this time nobody is questioning who is the real mother of Ryan’s kids.

Not yet, anyway.

---

Hey girl! It’s Paul Ryan

---

There’s the video. Here’s the transcript.

Discuss.

---

RNC Open Thread – Paul Ryan’s Big Night

Paul Ryan gives his acceptance speech tonight. FOX cancelled Sarah Palin’s appearances. Clint Eastwood is rumored to be in Tampa.

What stupid shit will MSNBC pull tonight? What will everyone be talking about tomorrow?

Inquiring minds want to know.

---

DJ, spin that stuff!

---

Paul Ryan interview:

QUESTION: Should abortions to be available to women who are raped?

RYAN: Well, look, I’m proud of my pro-life record. And I stand by my pro-life record in Congress. It’s something I’m proud of. But Mitt Romney is the top of the ticket and Mitt Romney will be president and he will set the policy of the Romney administration.

---

Think Progress headline:

Ryan Refuses To Say Abortions Should Be Available To Women Who Are Raped

---

I’m surprised they didn’t ask him if he stopped beating his wife.

Obviously the Democrats hope to make this election about abortion. They would rather talk about anything but the economy.

But is that a good strategy?

Are the Democrats Delusional On Abortion?

The Democrats apparently think they have hit the jackpot with Todd Akin’s moment of stupidity, but I’m not so sure. How, exactly, are they going to take advantage of Akin’s blunder? By talking ceaselessly about abortion. At the Washington Examiner, Paul Bedard headlines: “Dem Convention becomes anti-Akin affair.” That is a serious mistake. The Democratic convention should be an anti-Romney affair.

[...]

We can only pray that this report is true, and that the Democrats devote all three days in Charlotte to discussions of abortion rights, rape and contraception. If there is one thing we can say with certainty this year, it is that the overwhelming majority of voters don’t want to hear about the social issues. They want to know how we are going to climb out of the four-year economic funk that has been the Obama administration. If undecided viewers tune into the Democratic convention and hear all about abortion, and tune into the Republican convention and hear all about the economy, Romney will win in a landslide.

And, by the way, Republicans should help drive this contrast by saying nothing–and I mean, absolutely nothing–about any social issue. They should talk the economy non-stop, with occasional digressions into foreign policy. If they are asked about abortion, they should chide the reporter for asking about a topic that is of little interest to voters and that, by the way, the president, vice president, senators and congressmen have no ability to do anything about, and give an answer about the economy. If the Democrats want to define themselves to voters as the party of abortion and gay marriage, please, God, let them do so!

---

This is where message discipline and sticking to your game plan become important. The Obama campaign and the media (but I repeat myself) are trying desperately to change the subject. They are grossly exaggerating Ryan’s record, trying to force him to defend himself.

But there is an old axiom – “If you are explaining, you’re losing.”

R&R need to hang tough, stick with their strategy and keep their eyes on the prize.

---

Paul Ryan on the Man and the Moment

Mark my words. That’ll be a campaign slogan introduced at the convention. Mitt Romney: The Man for this Moment. Or something like it, anyway.

As promised, here’s the full video of Ryan’s speech yesterday. Apologies for the shaky camera, which was my on-clearance $50 hand-held video cam, paid for with a generous donation from one of my P&L readers ahead of my 2010 women’s history tour. Thank you, you know who you are! Apologies also for my loud laugh.

Video of Ryan’s speech at the Oxford, OH campus of Miami University, in two parts.

Here’s Part 2:

Highlights for me:

“We will lead. We will earn your support. We will deserve victory. Because when we win, we will have the obligation, the mandate, and the moral authority to get this country back on the right track.”

“This is one election where this division presents such a clear contrast. Governor Romney and I will protect and strengthen Medicare for our current senior and for our future seniors of tomorrow. there’s more… We need growth, we need opportunity, we need upward mobility, we need jobs. And that is why we’re offering solutions. “

“We’re not going to try and tear and tear down our opponents so you try to make one of the awful selections of the lesser of two evils, we’re going to offer you solutions. That’s what the Romney plan for a stronger middle class is all about!”

“We have got to stop spending money we don’t have!”

“Let me tell you a little about the man who will be the next President of the United States. His name is Mitt Romney. It’s really kind of amazing in my mind how the man and the moment have met. Because we need a person of conviction. A person of integrity. And the person with the kind of leadership we need to get this country back on track. “

“This is no ordinary election. These are not ordinary times. America, and the meaning and promise of our nation, is at stake in this election.”

It was really quite an amazing experience, all doubts aside in the clear light of day. I’ll have a complete analysis on the particulars of the speech tomorrow at P&L. Share your thoughts in comments.

My Day with Paul & My Fellow Americans

Paul Ryan @ Oxford, OH, August 15, 2012

Though President Obama has not been able to lift the oceans as he promised, I can now report that Paul Ryan is able to heal air conditioners from a distance. Heh.

My car’s air conditioner broke during a heat streak in early July. The system emitted cool air, but the blower no longer worked. Since then I’d been driving around in the stifling Midwestern heat with every window rolled down, streams of sweat nonetheless pouring down the sides of face, leaving little trails of erupting zits to constantly frame my face this summer. At 41, the last thing you want is a visit from your adolescence.

So you can imagine the arching of my overplucked eyebrow when the blower magically started working as I exited the highway this afternoon for the long drive through the small towns that pepper the cornfields of eastern Indiana on my way to Oxford, OH to attend the Paul Ryan rally. Just as I was about to hit the areas where the humidity clings to the jagged-edged cornfields and hovers above them, the gift of cool air returned. It was tempting to take it as a sign of the promise of the day, but of course I’m much too old to be interpreting mundane incidence such as mechanics jarring itself into performance again as signs of much of anything.

I open with this joke because I suspect this is not the post you’re going to want to read about my trip to see Paul Ryan today, but it is the post I need to write about it.

Joan Walsh is lyin’ about Ryan

---

I was reading Joan Walsh’s latest at Salon when I came across a bald-faced lie:

The other component of GOP fakery Ryan exemplifies is the notion that a pampered scion of a construction empire who has spent his life supported by government somehow represents the “white working class,” by virtue of the demographics of his gradually gerrymandered blue collar district. (Emphasis added)

---

Paul Ryan represents Wisconsin’s 1st District. It’s pictured above. It’s about as un-gerrymandered as any congressional district in the country. It’s generally rectangular in shape, with one side set by the Wisconsin/Illinois border and another set by Lake Michigan.

But wait! There’s more:

I write about this in my book: guys like Ryan (and his Irish Catholic GOP confrere Pat Buchanan) somehow become the political face of the white working class when they never spent a day in that class in their life.

---

I guess she never heard of the Kennedys. But last time I checked, construction was considered a blue collar job.

---

Lyin’ about Ryan

---

So I was over at the Rathole of Bitterness and I noticed they were all out of anti-Mormon bigotry today. Instead they were pimping a clever pack of lies about Paul Ryan by Chuckie Pierce:

The Ryan Family’s History of Fakery

I was struck by the revelation in this morning’s paean to zombie-eyed granny-starving in the Times, that young, up-from-the-muddy-bootstraps Paul Ryan, the plucky burger-flippin’ success story from darkest Janesville, Wisconsin, had amassed a fortune of “between three and $7.7 million” without having held a more lucrative job than “Congressman” at any point in his adult life. Then, I noticed another item. Namely, that:

Mr. Ryan reported two tax-deferred college savings plans, with a combined value of between $150,000 and $300,000. He also reported two investment partnerships worth, in total, between $350,000 and $750,000, mostly containing shares of stock in well-known companies, including Apple, Goodrich, Kraft Foods, Visa and Whole Foods. Both partnerships were formed by Mr. Ryan and other family members to manage assets left by his grandparents and an aunt. Mrs. Ryan has reported receiving a trust after her mother died in 2010 that is valued between $1 million and $5 million, according to a letter Mr. Ryan filed with his latest financial disclosure. Mrs. Ryan also has longstanding interests in several mining and oil exploration investments in Oklahoma and Texas managed by her father, Dan Little, a lawyer in Oklahoma whose clients include oil and gas companies. Those investments generated as much as $150,000 in income last year.

So, he’s not the son of poor Smallville dirt farmer Jonathan Kent and his wife, Martha, after all. Where does the family dough come from? A construction company founded by Great Grandpa Ryan. The Rude Pundit went a’wandering through Googlestan, and what did he find? Among other great nuggets, this thing right here:

“The Ryan workload from 1910 until the rural interstate Highway System was completed 60 years later, was mostly Highway construction.”

---

If you were a gullible person of low intelligence with poor reading skills you might get the impression that Paul Ryan has been very dishonest about himself, telling people how he overcame adversity to get where he is today when he was really born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

But I’m not a very trusting person so I check sources for myself and I try to read carefully.

First of all, Paul Ryan never claimed to be poor. But his dad died when he was just sixteen. Ryan was then living in Janesville, Wisconsin with his mother. His paternal great-grandfather had indeed founded a paving business, but it was owned and run by other members of the Ryan family. Paul Ryan’s father was an attorney who did not work for the family business.

After Paul’s father died he was entitled to Social Security benefits until he turned eighteen. Paul saved that money and used it to help pay for college. He also worked at McDonald’s while he was in high school. After he graduated from college Ryan entered public service where he has remained ever since.

Now here is where the reading skills become important. Chuckie P. makes it sound like Ryan amassed a small fortune on a Congressman’s salary. But read carefully:

Mr. Ryan reported two tax-deferred college savings plans, with a combined value of between $150,000 and $300,000.

---

Paul Ryan has three kids. He has managed to put aside some money for them for college. It’s not an outrageous amount for someone who makes $174,000 a year.

But wait! There’s more!

He also reported two investment partnerships worth, in total, between $350,000 and $750,000, mostly containing shares of stock in well-known companies, including Apple, Goodrich, Kraft Foods, Visa and Whole Foods. Both partnerships were formed by Mr. Ryan and other family members to manage assets left by his grandparents and an aunt.

---

This one is unclear – is that the total value of the partnership or is that just Ryan’s share? How much did he inherit and when did he actually inherit it?

This is the best part:

Mrs. Ryan has reported receiving a trust after her mother died in 2010 that is valued between $1 million and $5 million, according to a letter Mr. Ryan filed with his latest financial disclosure. Mrs. Ryan also has longstanding interests in several mining and oil exploration investments in Oklahoma and Texas managed by her father, Dan Little, a lawyer in Oklahoma whose clients include oil and gas companies. Those investments generated as much as $150,000 in income last year.

---

“Mrs. Ryan” would be Janna Ryan, Paul’s wife. In other words, the bulk of the “fortune” amassed by Paul Ryan actually belongs to his wife. Wisconsin is a community property state so if they were to divorce she would keep all of her inheritance as her separate property.

Last but not least is the idea that Paul Ryan is a hypocrite because some members of his family made money building roads via government contracts. But Ryan has never argued that government should not build and maintain roads. And his great-grandfather still had to run a business at a profit while winning low-bid contracts.

What’s that you say? The article didn’t actually say anything that wasn’t true? That is correct. But my grandpa used to say “The best way to lie is to tell the truth creatively.” Chuckie P. has obviously learned that technique.

---

At least they didn’t yell “mic check”

---

WaPo:

Paul Ryan heckled in Iowa as Mitt Romney campaigns in Florida

Newly minted vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan got a rude introduction to the bright glare of a national campaign Monday, as he was aggressively heckled throughout his first solo appearance since he was named to the Republican ticket.

About half a dozen protesters interrupted the Wisconsin congressman’s remarks during the Iowa State Fair — some rushed the stage and the rest shouted down the candidate for the entirety of his remarks.

“Are you going to cut Medicare?” one woman screamed from a few yards in front of Ryan.

“Stop the war on the middle class!” yelled an older, bespectacled man.

Ryan appeared to handle the pandemonium in stride, continuing on with his stump speech without teleprompters or notes.

“These ladies must not be from Iowa or Wisconsin,” Ryan told the crowd at one point, as he sought to regain his footing.

---

I never did much care for heckling. Its primary purpose isn’t expressing ideas, it’s to shut down the free speech of others.

It’s also counterproductive. Watch the clip and tell me who came away looking better – Ryan or the screaming morons?

If these idiots didn’t exist Romney would have to invent them.

---

Is Paul Ryan a crazy wingnut?

---

Do you know Paul Ryan? I don’t. I mean, I know who he is, but I’ve never met the man. I’ve read some articles and seen him on television a few times but that was about it until a few days ago.

Mitchell Bard at HuffPoop:

After all, that set of values is exactly what Ryan is all about. Republicans might want to sell him as practical or intellectual, but he is nothing more than someone who Nate Silver documented as the most conservative VP nominee of the 20th and 21st centuries. He is nowhere near the mainstream, even (especially) on non-economic issues. This is a man who worships at the altar of Ayn Rand, gave a thousand dollars to Tom DeLay’s defense fund, and supports fetal personhood (a concept so fringe it was voted down by the people of Mississippi), which would ban certain types of birth control.

In short, Ryan holds the positions of a right-wing extremist who poses a threat to basic American values that have sustained the people of this country for the last 80 years (and the welfare of lower, working and middle class Americans, not to mention the basic rights of women), tucked neatly behind a pleasant looking facade.

---

Well that’s not exactly a glowing reference now it it? But then again the article doesn’t indicate how well Mr. Bard knows Paul Ryan either. Who does know him?

How about the people of his district? They’ve elected him seven times now. You would think they had formed an opinion of him by now.

Wikipedia:

Wisconsin’s 1st congressional district is a congressional district of the United States House of Representatives in southeastern Wisconsin, covering Kenosha County, Racine County and most of Walworth County, as well as portions of Rock County, Waukesha County and Milwaukee County[1]. The district’s current Representative is Republican Paul Ryan.

A swing district, George W. Bush carried the district in 2004 with 53% of the vote but the district narrowly voted for Barack Obama over John McCain in 2008, 51.40-47.45%.

Ryan doesn’t come from the Deep South or some Bible Belt stronghold. He’s also not from some rural upstate inbreeder part of Wisconsin. His district is squeezed in between Milwaukee and the border with Illinois, about 60 miles north of Chicago. Even though his district voted for Obama in 2008 they still gave Ryan 64% of the vote.

Apparently they like him.

What do you think?

---

---

Who you gonna believe?

---

Was Paul Ryan a good or bad pick for Mitt Romney? That depends on who you believe.

Obama Team Salivates Over Ryan Pick

Whether it’s true or not, senior advisers to President Obama’s re-election campaign believed, long before presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney picked Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate, that Romney had been oddly and helpfully “collaborative” in making the Obama case against him.

That’s the word David Axelrod used in an interview with National Journal to describe Romney’s unwillingness to pitch a strong national narrative about his life, his plans for the nation or how he understood the economic travails of the middle class. Axelrod found Romney’s dug-in refusal to release more tax returns (only 2010 so far, with 2011 coming) similarly helpful. Axelrod even thought Romney’s overseas trip helped Obama reinforce a not-quite-ready-for-prime-time meme.

From team Obama’s perspective, the Ryan choice transforms this imagined and perceived collaboration into a virtual partnership.

“It plays right into it,” a senior Obama strategist told National Journal. “Romney believes in cutting taxes for the wealthy and making the middle class pay for them. Ryan not only believes it, but he’s actually done it. It’s Romney’s agenda in action.”

Obama aides had been convinced that Romney would settle on former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Again, fevered perceptions of rival campaign weaknesses are just that. But they now believe Romney has used his biggest choice of the campaign to drive home their central indictment of his candidacy and his policies — that they pose a threat to middle-class livelihoods and aspirations.

One Obama backer privately said — not the least bit in jest — that the campaign could now siphon off cash donations for margarita machines, because there was so much to celebrate between now and Election Day.

Another Democratic operative declared the election effectively over — that Ryan was the self-hammered nail in Romney’s own coffin.

---

Mary Kate Hambone: