Mitts Pick

[Hoss]

Haha.  Anybody who requires his town hall meetings be PPV events because he wants to make sure the questions he'll be asked are softball questions deserves to the be Veep nod.  Look what we got in 2008 from the Repubs.

[swake]

It's a similar pick to Palin. Done to shore up the base when that's not what Romney needs when he's already well behind. It's dissimilar in that Ryan does not seem like an idiot but probably just as harmful with his positions on popular programs.

[nathanm]

that his draconian budget ideas will appeal to the tea party types that don't really trust Romney.

This is what all the media is reporting, but I don't get it. Ryan's budget plan isn't any less fanciful than Romney's. Neither add up. Romney should have had mondo credibility with the so-called budget hawks.

I was actually surprised when I read that Ryan was the pick this morning. Why would they make the same mistake twice in a row? I can only imagine than they're not actually serious about wanting to win. The Republicans do a lot better with the electorate (nationally, anyway) when they're in the opposition. They probably know damn well that their proposals will not break us out of this economic funk, so better to have Obama in the White House and Boehner in control of the House where he can prevent anything that could possibly be viewed as a success by Obama making it through. If they get Romney in, they have to start taking responsibility for their lack of action.

Oh well, further demonstrations of the unseriousness of the current crop of Republicans can only lead to their increasing marginalization. Unfortunately, we'll have to deal with more Tea Party BS during their death throes. Hopefully the party that emerges from the ashes is actually more interested in our country than their donors and their ideology.

[Ed W]

Why would they make the same mistake twice in a row? I can only imagine than they're not actually serious about wanting to win. The Republicans do a lot better with the electorate (nationally, anyway) when they're in the opposition....

Remember that as the circular firing squad formed after McCain's loss one criticism was that he hadn't been conservative enough.  Never mind his disastrous pick for VP.  The Republican party is split between the far right tea party jihadists and the more moderate country club elitists.  It's an uneasy alliance because the tea party will not permit any compromise.  The monied elite needs them to get elected, particularly in the primaries, but their scorched earth policies toward both the Democrats and more moderate Republicans make governing extremely difficult. 

While we have fundamental differences regarding policy, both Democrats and Republicans want to see that our government actually works.  The tea party, on the other hand, is perfectly willing to make it all come crashing down unless they get precisely what they want - without any compromises whatsoever.  They're better organized than the bomb-throwing anarchists of a century ago, but the end result is the same.

[patric]

It's a similar pick to Palin. Done to shore up the base when that's not what Romney needs when he's already well behind. It's dissimilar in that Ryan does not seem like an idiot but probably just as harmful with his positions on popular programs.

Seems like there was some rule that your VP cant be smarter than your president, or something...
Dont think Bush 2 followed that one, either. 

[Teatownclown]

From: David Axelrod
Date: August 11, 2012
Subject: Video: Get to know Paul Ryan

Friend --

This morning, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan stood on a platform in Norfolk, Virginia, and introduced themselves to the country as "America's Comeback Team."

"Go Back Team" would be more appropriate -- because a Romney-Ryan administration is the definition of a fast track back to the failed, top-down economic policies of the past.

In Ryan, Romney has selected a running mate best known for designing the extreme GOP budget that would end Medicare as we know it, and -- just like Romney's plan -- actually raise taxes on middle-class Americans to pay for an additional $250,000 tax break for millionaires and billionaires. As a leader of the House Republicans and a Tea Party favorite, Congressman Ryan has led the relentless, intensely ideological battle for these kinds of budget-busting policies that punish seniors and the middle class.

Today, Romney doubled down on those policies.

But most Americans don't know Paul Ryan. In the coming days, the other side will spend a lot of time trying to define Romney's choice and what it says about his candidacy -- so we put together a brand-new website on Romney-Ryan with everything you need to know.

Check it out, watch the video, and then show your support for President Obama and Vice President Biden by sharing it with friends and family.

If their records are any indication of how they'd govern, it's not looking good (unless you're a right-wing conservative in the top 5 percent of income-earners and NOT a woman or a worker counting on Medicare in your future).

This isn't a matter of opinion:

-- As an architect of the extreme GOP budget, Ryan will be Romney's biggest advocate for his plan to give more tax breaks to millionaires, paid for by $2,000 in higher taxes on middle-class families with kids.

-- The Ryan plan, which Romney said is "an excellent piece of work, and very much needed," calls for deep cuts in education -- from college scholarships to Head Start -- critical scientific research, and clean energy investments, all to help pay for those tax cuts.

-- Ryan authored the original plan to convert Medicare into a voucher program, costing seniors an additional $6,000 or more each year.

-- Ryan talks tough on balancing the budget, but his own plan would fail to do that for a generation. The burden of balancing any Ryan budget falls squarely on the backs of seniors and middle-class families -- while no one at the top is asked to pay even a dollar more.

-- Both Romney and Ryan are severely conservative, threatening to take us backward on women's issues and civil rights. Ryan cosponsored a bill that would ban common forms of birth control, in vitro fertilization, and abortions even in cases of rape or incest. He voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, voted against the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and sponsored a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality.

On so many issues, Paul Ryan, like Mitt Romney, has taken extreme positions that are out of touch with the values most Americans share.

It's our job, especially in these first few days and weeks, to make sure voters get the facts on his record, and a clear picture as to what a Romney-Ryan administration would look like for regular people, when the slogans fade away and the real policy decisions they'd face as president and vice president are on the table.

Check out the new video and site on Romney-Ryan:

http://my.barackobama.com/Go-Back-Team

Thanks for everything.

Big day.

David

P.S. -- We are 87 days out from Election Day. This campaign is relying on people like you to help build it in the time we've got left. Chip in to support the Obama-Biden campaign today.
http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/08/obama-camp-video-get-to-know-paul-ryan-131825.html

Goldwater II coming to a tv near you Nov. 6, 2012!

[Teatownclown]

ASSCLOWNS.....

[DolfanBob]

Yes but his Wife is from Oklahoma. And who doesn't like a pair of dogs named Boomer and Sooner.
That's got V.P. written all over it.

[Red Arrow]

If they get Romney in, they have to start taking responsibility for their lack of action.

Nah, just take a cue from the present occupant of the White House; blame Obama and the Democratic held Senate.

[AquaMan]

From a political perspective it is not the same as Palin at all. Ryan may represent a strong, vocal part of the party but he is capable and bankable. He'll maintain liason with those donors and leaders.

As far as Ryan's views and actions, they are anathema to mine. But Romney didn't stumble here.

Interesting that Romney required multiple years of tax returns from his potential VP candidates.

[TulsaRufnex]

I'm gonna put this choice in the "be careful what you wish for" category.  On both sides...

The ironic part is that issuing Medicare vouchers to buy "market based" private insurance has a snowball's chance in hell of becoming a reality if Romney wins and Obamacare is repealed.
Conversely, I could see the voucher idea used as a political compromise years from now, but ONLY if Obamacare is left largely intact and private insurance companies are not allowed to discriminate based on age and pre-existing conditions...

Ryan is a career politician, not a businessman... who embraces the same type of Jack Kemp-style conservatism that touts massive tax cuts for the wealthy which will magically jump start the economy.... and uses deficit reduction as an excuse to privatize everything from Medicare and Social Security to Student loans.... in theory, supply-side Reaganomics... in practice, a tax giveaway to the wealthy and socialized tax credits for corporations that benefit from privatization, financed by robbing the poor and middle-class...

Paul Ryan is the epitome of a born-on-third-base-and-thinks-he-hit-a-triple child of privilege and an "I got mine, screw you" child of capitalist entitlement...

http://www.salon.com/2012/08/12/paul_ryan_randian_poseur/

Paul Ryan was born into a well-to-do Janesville, Wisc. family, part of the so-called "Irish mafia" that's run the city's construction industry since the 19th century. When his lawyer father died young, sadly, the high-school aged Ryan received Social Security survivor benefits. But they didn't go directly to supporting his family; by his own account, he banked them for college. He went to Miami University of Ohio, paying twice as much tuition as an Ohio resident would have; the in-state University of Wisconsin system (which I attended) apparently wasn't good enough for Ryan. After his government-subsidized out-of-state education, the pride of Janesville left college and went to work for government, where he's spent his entire career, first serving Republican legislators and then in his own Congressional seat, with occasional stints at his family-owned construction business when he needed a job (reportedly he also drove an Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile for a while).

Ironically, Ryan came to national attention trying to dismantle the very program that helped him go to the college of his choice, pushing an even more radical version of President Bush's Social Security privatization plan, which failed. He has since become the scourge of the welfare state, a man wholly supported by government who preaches against the evils of government support.

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...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. Their only tether to it is their remarkable ability to tap into the economic anxiety of working class whites and steer it toward paranoia that their troubles are the fault of "other" people – the slackers and the moochers, Ayn Rand's famous "parasites."

[nathanm]

From a political perspective it is not the same as Palin at all.

I disagree. There is a minor difference in that Ryan actually has some experience in Washington, but he's an equally radical choice for an equally floundering campaign. Who wants to take odds on Romney suspending his campaign later in the year? 

[Gaspar]

I like the official campaign poster.

[erfalf]

You really need to read up on how companies like Bain make money. It's not how you think they do. 

Worked in Private Equity. Please illuminate.

[erfalf]

Can't wait to see the VP debate. That at the very least should be entertaining.