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.
He’s young, good-looking, fresh-faced, and smarter than arguably anyone else on budget issues. It’s hard to make the small-town Wisconsin boy into an evil administrator of death to the elderly, though Democrats will certainly try.
[…]
The fact he’s already got an Internet meme to commemorate his dreaminess is certainly not a strike against him.
Liberals are positively gleeful that Romney has picked someone whose positions they can gleefully demagogue. But there’s another sense, even among national political reporters, that Team Obama should be careful what it wishes for.
Howard Fineman tweeted shortly after the news broke, “My sense is that Dems should be careful what they wish for. Yes Ryan budget cuts Medicare. But he is best upbeat conserv since RR [Ronald Reagan] and Kemp. Also Ryan is nice family guy from what we know, Catholic conservative with a folksy touch. You can’t win without majority of Catholics.” Marc Ambinder described him generously as “[y]oung, dynamic, Midwestern, fluent in wonk-speak, conveys a sense of urgency about problems facing America, not scary, base energizing.”
These plaudits from the press will likely last no longer than a day, but I think they speak to a truth about liberals, who are so quick to assume everyone will evaluate Ryan the same way they do they’re in danger of not seriously considering this showdown. And, some polls suggest Ryan’s plan isn’t quite as easy a target as they think.
The political press and President Obama alike claim they want a campaign about big ideas, an adult debate about policy differences. Now they’ve got it in spite of, not because of, Barack Obama. With Ryan on the ticket, the debate should no longer be about contraception and the deferred cancer-causing capabilities of Bain investments. It will be about the budget and the $16-trillion debt, the unsustainable trajectory of the federal government and the promises it’s already breaking to generations to come. It will be about Simpson-Bowles and a federal government that hasn’t even bothered to pass a budget since before the iPad existed. It will be about how four years of grossly increased spending has stimulated us into the worst recovery in American history, unless you happen to be an Obama donor or crony. It will be about how creating new entitlement programs cannot possibly fix the ones that are already broken. And, it will be about whether we value an ever more dependent society or an ever more successful one.
As Ryan said this morning, it will be about, “what kind of country we want to be” and “what kind of people we want to be.” Romney and Ryan have signaled their faith in the American people to be brave, smart, and yes, hopeful enough to deal with the tough choices and real changes President Obama has spent four years evading and exacerbating.
One thing is for sure, if both sides are excited about Paul Ryan being chosen as Mitt’s running mate then one side is full of shit. It will be really interesting to see how this plays out.
My gut feeling is that this was a smart move by Mitt Romney but I can’t back that up with facts. It is easy to engage in wishful thinking because I want Obama to lose. Objective assessment is more difficult.
The three key things to consider:
1. What effect will the Ryan nomination have on the GOP base? It won’t change any minds but will it motivate them to get out and vote? Increased turnout by the base is essential to Romney’s chances of victory. On the other hand:
2. What effect will the Ryan nomination have on the Democratic base? It won’t change any minds but will it motivate them to get out and vote? If Obama wants a second term he needs to generate enthusiasm like he did in 2008.
3. What effect will this have on independent/swing voters? Obama won this group last time. Will they make the same mistake again?
I think #1 and #2 will most likely cancel each other out, but the effect would be negligible anyway. I think the partisans on both sides are about as motivated as they’re gonna get.
I really don’t think that the Democrats will have much luck trying to convince independent/swing voters that Ryan is a “zombie eyed granny starver.” But that won’t stop them from trying. I think in the end Ryan will attract more votes to Romney than he will repel. But will that be enough?
Stay tuned for new developments.
The Crawdad Hole 
My gut feeling it is a smart move by Romney too. The only *facts* I have are his string of overwhelming successes in his life. Yes, his dad was a success by the time Romney was born, so he grew up with advantages, such as a paid for education, that many others do not have. However, he made his fortune not through inheritance but through his own work picking winners & losers in private equity (with a 78% success rate — nothing to sneeze at) to create one of the premium investment firms in the country (and no matter what the Obots try to say, Bain is *not* a corporate raider, which is a much less risky way to turn a profit than an investment company is), which gave him the ability to retire in his 40s living on $20 million a year in investment income. He didn’t do that by failing to see red flags or by being impatient and certainly not by allowing amateurs like Obama and Axelrod to play him. Same thing with his ability to turn around the scandal ridden, deeply in debt 2002 Olympics with 9-11 happening in the middle of it all, resulting in a $100 million profit (which, btw, Romney used, along with his donated salary, to establish a foundation & facility to train future US Olympic athletes). That’s enough for me to say that the Ryan pick must be a good move — this guy hasn’t made a lot of major mistakes in his life.
Also, I’ve never been one to see Romney as “playing it safe” (a common critique of him on both the left & right). Again, this goes to his ability to be patient & knowing when to make his move — this is an undervalued quality in today’s “instant gratification takes too long” society, but it is vital to the kind of success Romney has had. Everyone on the right has been screaming like fools all summer that Romney needs to set his hair on fire yelling about Obama’s school records to show he “could take the fight to Obama” — but that’s a sucker’s play, IMO, and *exactly* what Obama (and his PR arm, the MSM) wanted — why else has the Left also been baiting Romney, calling him a “wimp” for not ceding to the cries on the Right to light his hair on fire? Romney is taking the fight to Obama on his own terms, not Obama’s. Romney is kind of like the father telling the children “No. I’m not playing your game. You are going to play mine.”
And I don’t care what either side says — talking about the economy is *good* for Romney, not Obama. And, coincidentally, that is exactly what Romney said he is going to talk about since January and it is exactly what Obama has taken great pains to avoid doing until now. I’m not trying to say Romney is omnipotent, but in a contest of smarts against Obama, I give the advantage to Romney all.day.long.
Finally, while I agree that all 3 of your points come in to play with the Ryan pick, I disagree that points 1 & 2 cancel each other out. There is more enthusiasm on the right to GOTV than there is on the left (see, 2010 turnout almost even between Ds & Rs; see, also, believe it or not, CFA “Appreciation Day”) even before Ryan pick — it’s only going to go up after the pick. Further, no way is Obama going to be able to generate the enthusiasm he had in 2008 — I don’t care how much he demonizes Romney & Ryan. Obama isn’t the same thing he was in 2008 (well, for *us* who always saw him for the fraud that he is, he is, but you know what I mean — he has revealed himself in such a way that no one will be buying his “hope and change” snake oil). His record of failure & his broken promises have tarnished him. So has his tactics against Romney thus far. I mean, now that Obama has called Romney a felon, a tax cheat and accused him of murder, is anyone other than die hard Obots going to believe his fear mongering about Ryan, especially with Romney being able to access GE money to make sure his counter-argument gets out in a way he wasn’t able to do over the summer? And I’m one who would have been predisposed to believe the fear-mongering of Ryan’s plan, but even if Obama hadn’t lost me in 2008, he sure as hell lost me with his despicable tactics and bald-faced lies against Romney thus far which, at minimum, guarantees that I will listen to what Romney & Ryan have to say about their plan before I draw any conclusions. I’m certainly not going to rely on Obama’s interpretation of it. I don’t think I’m alone in this thinking.
I agree that there is more intensity on the right this cycle. My point was that I don’t think appointing Ryan will affect that very much and to the extent he has an effect at all it will apply equally to both sides.
One area where Ryan may give Mitt some voters he didn’t have is among the libertarians. Not the hard core Paulbots, but I’m seeing a lot of buzz on Twitter from libertarians who were iffy on Mitt, saying they are now all in. They really like this pick.
Nailed that one. I’m starting to see lots of Obots start to push how libertarians are unhappy and voting third party or some such. Never heard that crap from them before. Now all the sudden they’re all concerned about libertarians. They’re so transparent.
Allahpundit:
This guy is full of shit — exactly the type on the right I was complaining about in the earlier thread — the election has been about “nothing” my ass — this guy was determined NOT to like Romney no matter what. See, many of these ABRs on the right have been so butthurt that Romney beat out their guy (Santorum, Newt, Ron Paul, etc) that they have been saying, in all seriousness, that there was “not a dime’s worth of difference between Obama and Romney” and have been doing all they can to ignore what Romney has been saying — dismissing it all as “opportunistic pol speak” — while joining in with glee with the left’s nit-picking him to death. Many were threatening to stay home (as they did with McCain — expect that year Romney was their guy {rolls eyes}). In fact, one moron on Daily Caller (Matt Lewis, I think) wrote a piece a few days ago stating that an Obama re-election wouldn’t be that bad for “true conservatives” which basically argued that another Obama term, rather than having a “squish” like Romney win, would guarantee a “Tru Con”* running (and winning) in 2016. (*”Tru Con” is the name they give themselves; I use it for convenience only, not endorsement).
These people on the right is why I think you are wrong that the Ryan pick will not generate more enthusiasm on the right than on the left. These people were not enthusiastic at all about Romney & the Ryan pick definitely is going to beef up enthusiasm with these group — not just votes, but donations & volunteering — in a way that Obama’s demonizing him just is not going to have on the left. The people who are going to buy the demonizing of Ryan are the same ones who are already stating –as fact — that Romney is a felon, a tax cheat, a corporate raider and a murder. Romney has room to grow support/enthusiasm within his base on the right. Obama really doesn’t have that on the left, IMO.
I love this comment:
Yes, I do have to hand it to those guys on the right — on a per capita basis, they are much funnier than those on the left. I remember a comment over there right after the “Heckle Axelrod in Boston/News conference in front of Solyndra” one-two-punch Romney gave Obama in June that I still laugh thinking about:
This guy proves your point:
http://www.ricochet.com/main-feed/Romney-s-Declaration-of-War
That guy is very smart indeed! 🙂
BTW — I’m going to bed. Good night, myiq.
Buenos sueños Guapa
That’s the guy I discussed in my John Smart post.
The conservative pundit class who has dogged Romney since day one has been muted. Not only has Romney had to deal with the progressive whoring, excuse me Media, mouthpieces, he also had to take hits from the conservative ideologues who wanted idiots like Santorum or Gingrich who never had a shot at winning and prefer purity of conservative thought over power. Ryan represents what they SAY they believe and Romney is telling them one of their own will be at the table in the WH so shut the fuck up and get with the program.
Romney is also providing a bridge from the old guard to the new. The next generation of Republicans will be embodied in Ryan. He is not fighting them he is embracing them. I can’t even enumerate all the ways that Obama has done the opposite. Not only has he used an older experienced Biden like a rented mule, he ruined the chances of the next generation of national Democratic leaders with policies that insured they lost their elected offices. Young democratic congressmen and governors have lost and a lot of potential officeholder won’t even run with Obama poisoning the well.
I do not agree with a lot of what Romney espouses, and I sure do not agree with Ryan’s budgets, but you know what, THEY GET SHIT DONE! Ryan writes budgets. Harry Reid kills them on sight. The only things the Democratic congress did with Obama is the stimulus and ObamaTax. These pieces of shit legislation were so awful, so harmful, they may have set a record of doing everything their own voters told them NOT to do. They would still be doing it if not for 2010 elections. Obama has sucked the guts out of the Democratic party. It is a husk. It stands for nothing. It is the personal vehicle of a lying, slacking, con. A smarter, harder working, wiser, shrewder, pair are offering to clean up the mess. Obama is offering to make the mess bigger. Who are the people going to choose? Mr Mess or Mr Fix-it.
I predicted four years ago that Obama would cost the Democrats control of Congress and would ruin their brand for years afterward.
Nobody listened.
Dictators tend to kill off their own parties if not permanently then until everyone who remembers them is dead. I’ve thought for a good while that the Dems will become a regional party concentrated on the coasts with a few isolated pockets in some cities. And because so many moderates have lef,t the Dems will continue to lurch further left and continue the death spiral. The Republicans with the influx of moderates will at first fight it to maintain ideological right wing purity but in the end be overwhelmed and give up and become a more centrist party. They are already ditching the social conservative stuff.
With the exception of abortion ( which is a bit different in the eyes of many, since it involves a second human life being given no rights at all in their opinion), the new generation of R’s doesn’t give a shit about social issues. The days of R’s being the caricature of prudish old white men obsessed with teh gays and porn and bad TV shows is done. Over. Conservative activists are younger and much more libertarian than the old guard.
Take a look at the crowd yesterday in VA. Those were not old fusty people. That was a fucking young crowd. And Ace and Loesch and yes, Ryan and Palin are much better examples of who these people are today than Dick Armey and Orrin Hatch are.
The left keeps assuming they are fighting the GOP of 1972. They will continue to lose by doing that. Stupid markos was still tweeting yesterday about the GOP being nothing but a shrinking base of “old white men”. The newcons, many of them women or blacks or hispanics, were laughing their asses off mocking him.
And, some of us “old white women” have never been prudish!
We listened and you were right, myiq. And if President Obama wins this election, it will drive a stake into what is left of the Democratic Party.
But I am disappointed in Romney’s pick. Yes, it will sew up libertarians in his own party, but Ryans’s budgets are not the answer. (Hoover tried that already; it did not work. What works in a personal budget does not work when you print your own money. Obama’s problem was that he did not act like a Democrat — he was too timid, too corrupt and too Republican.) I think Romney will gain conservatives but lose some independents who might have been won over by a more moderate choice.
Of course, it might work. Maybe independents who don’t vote for him will stay home. And no one says Romney has to follow Ryan’s budgets or adopt his ideas. In fact, with Ryan out of Congress, Romney might have more flexibility.
It will make for an interesting election.
djmm
I listened. I predicted it too.
That’s my favorite part about the pending R&R win. It’ a big STFU, let’s get to work to purity trolls on both sides. It means the genuine American spirit that we’ve all known and loved our entire lives is coming back in vogue.
Wish I could give you a thousand thumbs up.
The past 24 hours has a been a explosion of OFA talking points on FB and Twitter, I have a feeling I’m going to lose a lot of friends and followers by responding “Okay, so Romney and Ryan have cooties, tell me ONE reason I should want to rehire Obama?”
Oh a fun fact about Ryan. He’s been good friends with Russ Feingold for years, their dads were lawyers in the same firm. When the GOP asked Ryan to challenge Feingold for his Senate seat, he refused.
Content of character my friends, content of character 😉
Thanks for this exposition re Ryan and Feingold. Feingold is the ONE Dem I would have no difficulty voting for. When I was working in Madison for the Kerry-Edwards campaign, he stopped by to say thanks to everyone. There were at least one hundred of us in this place and he said thank you to each one of us, making certain he left no one out. He wasn’t running for anything as I recall; this was strictly a presidential campaign headquarters. There were people from IL, MI, WI, IA, MN working at the site. I really like him.
Your story about Ryan makes me really like him as well. A few weeks ago I thought I’d have a real problem voting R if Ryan were on the ticket. That may not be as big a problem for me the more I learn about him. (especially when I hear all the hysteria coming from the Left). In fact, the more hystrionic the left becomes, the more sure I am that Ryan was the right choice (no pun intended).
Crazy, flailing, hysteria often has the opposite effect the flailers think it will have. 🙂
For Romney to win, Obama has to be exposed as the bait & switch artist he is, and other than Hill & Bill who won’t, Ryan is, hands-down, the best politician around to pull it off. So yes, I think it was a good choice.
Paul Ryan is probably the only pol who is capable of turning the table on Obama, especially when it comes to entitlements. I think all signs point to Obama absorbing medicare and other programs under the vast, unworkable umbrella of obamacare, and if voters get a whiff of that, it’s all over.
I have decided that I don’t like Debbie Wasserman Schultz any more.
She’s a gift from god. Every time she opens her mouth, the Romney team genuflects.
Last year there was an ad against Paul Ryan where he pushed an old woman in a wheelchair off a cliff.
I didn’t like the “she killed Vince Foster crap” and I really don’t like the accusation that Romney (and Ryan) murder people. I mean, this kind of hysteria and hyperbole does nothing to inform voters or support democracy. It’s infantile, it’s stupid, and I think someday we’re going to have to figure out how to regulate it. As a private citizen I can’t slander people like that, but apparently anything goes in politics.
What took you so long?
question in response to myiq’s statement about not liking DWS.
(also meant to be friendly sarcasm.) 😉
DWS was an HRC supporter. I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt.
thanks for your response. It makes sense to me.
#DebbieDoesntKnow
http://twitchy.com/2012/08/12/debbiedoesntknow-wasserman-schultzs-latest-lie-sparks-pointing-and-snickering-mockery/
i am listening to Stephanie Cutter be hysterical on Face The Nation (CBS) and is being challenged to say waht the Obama budget and plan for the economy. The host (?) will most likely lose her job after this Q&A
There was just a question about the “lack of foreign policy experience” on the R&R ticket. To which the R spokesperson said that Obama had less FP experience when nominated for POTUS.
nice response
You’re courageous for watching! Has she been asked about her lie?
… of course not. That way the substitute host will keep her job at CBS.
When I say “hysterical” that is exactly how she sounded. I can’t believe they didn’t ask her about the GST video when she “mentioned” the lies being told about BHO by the R’s
From CBS? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you.
Last year Politifact called the accusation that Republicans, especially Ryan, wanted to end medicare, “the lie of the year.”
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/dec/20/lie-year-democrats-claims-republicans-voted-end-me/
It’s kind of depressing, when you say, “who are you going to believe,” well, it’s probably not going to be the facts. People, Dems, get these ideas and talking points into their head, and nothing in the world including facts will persuade them to find the truth. But the truth is, Ryan is far more interested in preserving medicare than President Obama.
Good piece by Jay Cost:
Medicare is already broken. We either reform it or let it destroy our public finances.
Obamacare exacerbates the problems in the Medicare system, since it takes $700 billion from Medicare to fund the newly created entitlement.
Expect the ultimate Romney-Ryan plan to restore all funding to Medicare.
Combine these three points, and Team Romney can say that, if you’re a senior citizen who is worried about Medicare, your best bet is to vote for the Republican ticket. The Republicans will protect the system; the Democrats are taking half a trillion from it over the next decade to fund a new entitlement.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/msm-misunderstands-ryan-pick_649810.html?nopager=1
This is almost MoDo bad:
LOL, I’m telling you, Romney and Ryan must secretly be female! First we accuse Romney of being omnipotent and evil while also being an incompetent wimp, and now we’re obsessed over what they’re wearing and their grooming. Add in the accusations of murder and you’ve got a ticket with a couple of women on it!
WTH? Are Obots just so comfortable with their sexist memes, they decided to keep using them?
It’s who they are at their core.
I sometimes wish I were registered with that rag. The responses to this just begged to be answered.
Isn’t Robin Givhan a lover of the “fashion icon” some call FLOTUS?
First thing I thought of, Givhan slobbers over Michelle’s “style” yet seems to be an authority on how men should dress in Norfolk, Va. ? The RRs fit right in with “our people” yesterday 😉
The comments over there are disgusting. I’ve gotta say, I haven’t seen anything like this is coming from the conservative sites. Michelle Obama’s Mirror needs to clean up the comment section IMHO, but otherwise, the conservatives, from what I’ve seen, have pretty much stayed away from this kind of vile crap.
They’re just jealous that Ryan is so much more good looking than Michelle. LOL.
True story.
They only use the term “salivating” because Axelrod & Obama spend so much time talking out of their a**. In their world, “salivating” means “sh!tting themselves.”
RRROFLLLL!!!!
😆
Just saw that R/R will be in Waukesha WI this afternoon. I’m gonna try to go there. It’s a couple of hours from me. They most likely won’t be anywhere in IL – at least not anywhere near chicago.
O/T, but anybody watching the Olympics? Spain is giving us a hard time in the basketball final. Unbelievable!
All I have to say is, this election ain’t going to be boring.
Amen!
honk
There is a facebook page called 1 million strong against romney in 2012. The name kind of says it all, they’re against romney instead of for obama. They have post up that says liberals are rejoicing at the selection of paul ryan because paul ryan is just sarah palin with a penis. There you go.
Sarah Palin with a penis? Hmm…whoever created that better not meet Todd Palin. Darth Cheney with weapons would be like a boy scout compared to Todd.
Andy Sullivan’s wet dream
Whoa, go Reince!
“Obama has ‘blood on his hands’ for stealing from Medicare”
http://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-live/2012/08/priebus-obama-has-blood-on-his-hands-for-stealing-131837.html
I heart Reince…no question about it. (And I loved him before this piece.)
I do too. Seems like a very decent guy and it doesn’t take him an hour & a half of stumbling around to make a point.
me too. This guy is a plain spoken midwesterner. He speaks my language. This election might see the rise (finally) of the great midwestern mindset & work ethic. Love it! I ♥ the midwest!
I’ve been thinking – you know how a lot of people voted for Obama thinking he was a liberal and found out he was an authoritarian tool?
It may be that the GOP establishment picked Romney thinking he was a safe status quo candidate and might find out he’s secretly a Tea Party sympathizer. 😀
If Romney and Ryan can try to capture that American spirit of optimism and rescue us all from the negativity of “America is a mean country, your kids are fat, you didn’t build that, the wealthy are greedy, R’s want to throw grandma off a cliff,” they’ll have it made.
The Obama administration has really been a shame based administration, you should feel bad because you’re a “racist”, feel bad because you’re successful, feel bad because you don’t pay enough taxes. He talked about hope and change but he sure didn’t make us feel good about it.
Reagan pulled it off by announcing “it’s morning in America.” Candidates who can capture American optimism motivate voters to go to the polls.
I’m going to use this from now on.
Don’t you mean shameless?
Yep, the progs have gone nutazoid. ‘A committed mormon with a committed catholic as his wingman. This is gonna depress the evangelical religious right vote’. In reality, the evangelicals seem to have evolved much further than the progs. I really miss the old fashioned liberals. The Obamacrats have screwed the democratic party. The party of WJC is a shadow of its former self.
I wondered how long the Mormon/Catholic focus would take to rear up amd strike.
Here’s the deal, for me, on why I like Paul Ryan – besides the fact that he seems like a genuinely nice, hardworking, unassuming guy.
He wants to fix the problem. Or at least get a conversation going, in something approaching an adult manner, about fixing it. Our debt is unsustainable. No, we will not be able to keep all those promises we’ve made just by taxing the evil rich. IT WON’T WORK. There is not enough money in the few deep pockets. The math is clear. The surest way to “pull the rug out from under” future seniors is to continue going “lalalalalalala….I’ll think about that after the next election.” If we don’t do something now, what we will be FORCED to do later isn’t going to be pretty. Them’s the fucking NUMBERS, not ideology.
Paul Ryan has spent several years looking at that long view and saying quietly but relentlessly, “Um, guys…. we have to DO something. Um, I mean we really REALLY need to fix this.”
He is the only one on the national stage who has actually put forth, in DETAIL, numbers that work, without a lot of hiding costs, using 10 yrs revenue for 6 years spending, gimmicks, etc. That said, no I do not like everything in his plan. But you know what? Until someone else can show me a plan that does better (And an entire big -picture plan, not just a hacked off piece here and there), then I’m going to admire Ryan for having the balls to put something serious out there for discussion. Because NO ONE fucking else has. The rest keep playing punt the ball and kick the can and lalalalalalala.
His plan has big flaws, IMO. So? At least it’s there, on paper, and the numbers add up. Want a better plan? SO DO I. Then someone on the D side needs to come up with one, and put the fucking MATH down in WRITING and let’s see if there is a way out of this mess that doesn’t cut as much as Ryan’s plan. Tell me exactly where the money is coming from – no vague weasel words on “the rich could pay more.”. Which rich? At what income? How many of them are there? How much more will their tax be? How much revenue, precisely, will that raise? Is it enough? If not, what’s your plan on who to tax next? And will that be enough? Stop blowing smoke up my ass that we can have evrything from trains to free college to endless entitlements and no one but a few icky billionaires will have to pay for it. Because that’s bullshit. Be honest. Maybe we are ALL willing to pay more, but stop fucking lying.
Until the Dems can do that, then they can talk to the fucking hand with the screeching over Ryan’s plan. No one wants more taxes and everyone wants the moon in services. Not gonna happen. At least Ryan is being up front and honest about his proposed solution. Which despite my distaste for parts of it, is BUTTLOADS more adult and responsible than a single Dem out there today. It’s a courageous thing to say, “Like it or not, this is reality as I see it.”
I’d bank on Ryan being reasonable and compromising and adjusting parts of his budget, before I’d bank on the Dems who can’t get their heads out of their ass to have a clue and even come up with any numbers. My choice right now is adult who’s toooo strict and harsh, and feckless adolescents who think money grows on trees, and insist they can provide everything for everyone but are really vague or deceptive on paying for it.. Guess which one I (and most Americans) will pick?
Sorry, but I’ll go for the goddamned adult in the room, disagreements and all. If the Dems think there is a better way, then stop the speechifying and wailing about compassion and show me some fucking numbers. On paper. HOW are you going to do what you promise to do?
Well said, WMCB. Thats it in a nutshell. There is a huge, massive problem. Both the repubs and dems try to hide it and play elections. B.S is what I say. Face it head on, be honest bout it, but get a bipartisan agreement to deal with it. What both sides don’t want to hear is that we can’t go on as we are. And both repubs and dems have to compromise. Good luck on that. Both sides have polarised and demonised each other that each side thinks that they are right. We, as a nation, are gonna end up paying for these idiotic posturing and not solving the nations problems.
Well said! Indeed, the Dems should show us a PLAN, a realistic, hones to goodness written down plan.
I am disgusted with the D’s who are not the party I once knew. That does not make me a fan of the R’s either.
I want common sense and a game plan for restoring sanity. Is Romney/Ryan going to fill that ticket?
I need to study it more before I give up.
Good post, WCMB. There’s quite a bit in the Ryan plan that I actually do like. I don’t think a lot of people realize that poor seniors paid into medicare their whole lives, pay a premium out of their SS checks after they retire, and STILL have to apply for medicaid just to have some actual health coverage. Medicare is great…as long as you have four other insurance policies to back it up with. Ryan actually understands this, unlike most politicians and their followers who just chant “medicare is great!” Well, it’s not so great if you don’t have the money to supplement it with policies that cover something other then a portion of your hospitalization. In fact, it forces several of the seniors I know to try and figure out how to live off of 400 a month with their only coverage being for hospitalizations. So what happens? They wait until their medical problems are so bad, they have to be hospitalized. That costs the gov more than a simple trip to the doctor would have.
What do you mean? Just go to Obama’s website. It’s all there. Stephanie Cutter told me so. /snark
http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2012/08/11/boom-and-zoom-vs-turn-and-burn/?singlepage=true
something you will not read in the msm
boom and zoom vs turn and burn
What I’m reading today. At 12 pages long, it should be a cinch for everybody to educate themselves.
Click to access wydenryan.pdf
Discussion here: http://peacocksandlilies.com/2012/08/12/sunday-reading-the-ryan-wyden-medicare-plan/
Nice. Thanks.
The truth is: Romney was in the drivers seat with the Bushies backing because he sure as hell wasn’t going to wait 12 years to run after a Palin Presidency. The jokes on him because they are surely setting up his loss for Jebby. 👿
IMO – there will never be another Bush elected for 20 years – at least not a sibling. Jeb screwed the pooch by losing Florida to Lawton Childes ages ago. THAT IS WHY GW was FORCED upon the American People. A “DH” – in American League terms. a placeholder. But he was SO INEPT and the New American Century guys were LET LOOSE because he couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag.It was SUPPOSED to be Jeb, But oh my! He lost! That’s when the “electorate” was REMOVED from the results of the election process. IMO. I live in Florida, and this is the most clusterf*ck State EVAH when it comes to small “d” democracy. Remember 2008? If not watch all the Yoo Toobes on hanging Chads – and don’t forget the RBC, May 31, 2008. They stemmed from the same putrid source.