Mitts Pick

[nathanm]

If the shoe fits... His voting record is as conservative as Michelle Bachmann's. His social views definitely qualify as extreme.

[AquaMan]

After watching several excruciating minutes of television last night, may I suggest we suspend use of the word "extreme". Was Ryan this extreme 3 days ago? I mean for goodness sake, he is going to have even less power as a VP than he would on the budget committee in the house.

Oh, that and I didn't realize that Romney co-authored Ryan's budget a few years ago. Who knew?

If VP is so inconsequential, why does the right go after Biden so strongly?

I listened in horror as Ryan spoke on a call in show to Glenn Beck, and explained how he was working hard to frame Progressives as a cancer on America. He says this disease emanated from Germany, progressed through Madison, WI (the university) settling in the Liberal movement in America.

He was able to cement his status as a propagandist deluxe while slandering higher education, foreigners, and patriotic Americans with differing political views all with one motion. Classic republican.

[Townsend]

Oh, that and I didn't realize that Romney co-authored Ryan's budget a few years ago. Who knew?

No one?  At least not until the Wikipedia entries were updated maybe?  Not sure.

[erfalf]

If VP is so inconsequential, why does the right go after Biden so strongly?

I listened in horror as Ryan spoke on a call in show to Glenn Beck, and explained how he was working hard to frame Progressives as a cancer on America. He says this disease emanated from Germany, progressed through Madison, WI (the university) settling in the Liberal movement in America.

He was able to cement his status as a propagandist deluxe while slandering higher education, foreigners, and patriotic Americans with differing political views all with one motion. Classic republican politician.

If you had listened to Beck for any length of time, you'd know he has been focusing on what we call progressiveness for quit some time. And it is true that deeds done by progressives have been some of the most horrific in history. Yet they are never labeled radical.

[erfalf]

No one?  At least not until the Wikipedia entries were updated maybe?  Not sure.

I'm just regurgitating what I heard on television yesterday. The Ryan plan from a few years back is now to be known as the "Romney/Ryan Plan" apparently.

[erfalf]

If the shoe fits... His voting record is as conservative as Michelle Bachmann's. His social views definitely qualify as extreme.

So is it that conservatives are inherently radical or that he is in particular radical.

And what social views of his are radical?

[AquaMan]

If you had listened to Beck for any length of time, you'd know he has been focusing on what we call progressiveness for quit some time. And it is true that deeds done by progressives have been some of the most horrific in history. Yet they are never labeled radical.

Because they were our founding fathers.

[Townsend]

The Ryan plan from a few years back is now to be known as the "Romney/Ryan Plan" apparently.

"Me and Ryan goes together like peas and carrots."

[erfalf]

Because they were our founding fathers.

No, they were not. The Progressives in America had there hey day well over a century after that.

[Teatownclown]

Mitt Romney's Pick of Paul Ryan: Bold Doesn't Always Work

by Peter Beinart Aug 13, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
Romney's Ryan pick is meant to shake up the race, excite conservatives, rouse a jaded media, and save the day. But American politics is littered with bold and improbable decisions that didn't work out well.

Why did Mitt Romney choose Paul Ryan? Movies. In action movies, the climactic scene often goes something like this: The bad guys have captured the hero. He's bound and gagged thousands of miles from civilization as the final minutes tick away until the detonation of the super-thermo-subatomic death ray that will kill both him and half of humanity. In desperation, he hatches a wildly improbable escape plan, mutters to himself, "This is just crazy enough to work," and saves the planet.

In real life things rarely work out that way. In real life you rarely hear stories of people on the verge of bankruptcy who put their last remaining dollars on a 100-to-1 shot at the track and end up living happily ever after as a result. A big part of the reason people go to the movies, in fact, is to escape the unpleasant reality that in real life people in bad circumstances who hatch bold and improbable plans often ended up making things worse.

Which brings us to the Ryan pick. The argument that Romney needed to shake up the race makes sense. He was getting killed on Bain and tax returns; independents were deciding they didn't much like him; right-wing bigmouths were starting to mutiny. Choosing Rob Portman or Tim Pawlenty wouldn't have changed that storyline. To the contrary, it would have confirmed Romney's image as cautious, dull, and perhaps even resigned to defeat.

The Ryan pick, by contrast, was guaranteed to excite conservatives. And it was likely to elicit a positive reception from the mainstream press too, at least initially, because the mainstream press is deeply biased against things it considers boring, which the Ryan selection is not.

But American politics is littered with bold and improbable decisions that don't work out very well. Jimmy Carter's decision to demand his entire cabinet's resignation, seclude himself in the woods, and then deliver a speech decrying America's spiritual collapse was bold. So was candidate Walter Mondale's decision to declare that he'd raise taxes in 1984. Geraldine Ferraro was a bold vice-presidential pick; so was Dan Quayle; so was Sarah Palin. It was bold for Ronald Reagan to try to win over the Iranian regime by selling them weapons and then divert the money to Nicaragua's contras. It was bold for Bill Clinton to put his wife in charge of health-care reform. It was bold when Al Gore invaded George W. Bush's space in their third presidential debate. The Iraq War was very, very bold.

Not all high-risk political ventures fail, of course. (Obama's strike against Osama bin Laden worked out pretty well.) But with this one, the chances of failure look pretty good. Mitt Romney has now tied his presidential fortunes to Paul Ryan's budget plan. He may say he doesn't endorse all the plan's specifics, but as a matter of political reality, he already has. Politically, Ryan's budget plan is what defines him. It's why conservatives wanted him on the ticket. Now, some Republicans are saying that regardless of whether you agree with all the details in Ryan's plan, what matters is that he's put one forward while Obama hasn't. But that's too meta.

Voters aren't going to reward Romney and Ryan for their boldness in putting forward a plan any more than they rewarded Mondale for his boldness in proposing to raise taxes. They're going to decide whether they like what they know of the plan and in particular what they know of Ryan's plans for Medicare.

In the last couple of days, conservatives have urged the Romney campaign not to duck the Medicare fight, but instead to act aggressively to turn it to their advantage. But the argument over cutting Medicare didn't begin last Saturday. It's been going on for decades, with Republicans almost always on the losing side.

Ideologues are forever convincing themselves that if only they can find aggressive and articulate spokespeople, they can convince the public to believe things it didn't believe previously, but they're usually wrong. Barack Obama, a fairly persuasive guy, couldn't convince Americans to support closing Guantanamo Bay or paying higher energy bills to combat global warming. And the Romney-Ryan duo is unlikely to convince most Americans to support dramatically changing (and likely imperiling) Medicare because when it comes to Medicare, most Americans just don't share the priorities of the Republican right.

The first big difference is this: what keeps Paul Ryan and his Tea Party backers awake at night is the nation's debt. (This didn't keep Ryan from backing that vast, unpaid-for new government program called the Iraq War, but that's another column.) According to the Pew Research Center, 84 percent of Republicans call the reducing budget deficit a "top priority." That's only 6 points lower than the percentage who call "strengthening the nation's economy" a top priority and 7 points higher than the percentage who assign top-priority status to "improving the job situation." Among Republicans, in other words, America's fiscal plight is as worrying as its economic plight, or at least they're considered pretty much the same thing.

This helps explain the enthusiasm for Ryan, a guy more associated with rethinking budgets than creating jobs. The problem is that while swing voters also care about the budget deficit, they don't care as much as Republicans. Among independents, according to Pew, "strengthening the economy" outpolls "reducing the budget deficit" by 22 points. "Improving the job situation" outpolls it by 19 points. The message is clear: While Republicans seem to assume that anything that cuts the deficit—even if it causes pain—is good for the economy, most other Americans don't.

What's more, even when it comes to cutting the deficit, most Americans don't believe in doing it exclusively through tax cuts. According to Pew, in fact, even a majority of rank-and-file Republicans prefer cutting the deficit through both tax hikes and spending cuts than doing so through spending cuts alone. And when asked about Medicare spending, Americans want it to go up by a factor of more than 3 to 1. It's not that most Americans could never stomach any cuts in, or changes to, Medicare, but given how much they value the program, they consider such changes a last resort. And they suspect that right-wing Republicans, given their ideological antipathy to federal domestic spending, consider such cuts a first resort instead.

It's hard to blame Romney's advisers for gambling on Ryan. Yes, turning the campaign into a referendum on Medicare cuts doesn't bring the greatest odds of success. But if you believe Romney was on a losing trajectory already, what was there to lose? Except maybe the House and Senate.

and!:
"In short, Mr. Ryan's plan is devoid of credible math or hard policy choices. And it couldn't pass even if Republicans were to take the presidency and both houses of Congress. Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan have no plan to take on Wall Street, the Fed, the military-industrial complex, social insurance or the nation's fiscal calamity and no plan to revive capitalist prosperity — just empty sermons. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/opinion/paul-ryans-fairy-tale-budget-plan.html?_r=3&ref=opinion&pagewanted=all

David A. Stockman, who was the director of the Office of Management and Budget from 1981 to 1985, is the author of the forthcoming book "The Great Deformation: How Crony Capitalism Corrupts Free Markets and Democracy."


Goldwater II

[carltonplace]

No, they were not. The Progressives in America had there hey day well over a century after that.

Uh, yes they were. They considered themselves "the enlightened". Thomas Jefferson wrote his own version of the bible that removed all of the miracles/magic. You can buy this book on Amazon for $18.00. You can buy a whole slew of books on Amazon but I'm sure you won't because that might make Beck consider you to be progressive.

[Gaspar]

The head of President Obama's Blue-ribbon Deficite Reduction Committee seems to think otherwise. 

[Gaspar]

Uh, yes they were. They considered themselves "the enlightened". Thomas Jefferson wrote his own version of the bible that removed all of the miracles/magic. You can buy this book on Amazon for $18.00. You can buy a whole slew of books on Amazon but I'm sure you won't because that might make Beck consider you to be progressive.

Me thinks you don't know what the progressive movement was about. 

Hint: It was about government as a means to promote social and economic equality.  It promoted redistribution.

If you have read any of Mr. Jefferson's writings you would find that he is diabolically apposed to that.

A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. – Thomas Jefferson (1801)

[Teatownclown]

The head of President Obama's Blue-ribbon Deficite Reduction Committee seems to think otherwise. 

All Paul is doing is removing benefits and giving all the money to the rich.

Keep pushing the lie.

[erfalf]

Me thinks you don't know what the progressive movement was about.  

Hint: It was about government as a means to promote social and economic equality.  It promoted redistribution.

If you have read any of Mr. Jefferson's writings you would find that he is diabolically apposed to that.

A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. – Thomas Jefferson (1801)

I agree. What we call Progressives are not what the founders were. And the founders were a collection of many different view points for that matter.

The fact that you can equate modern and historic progressives to the founders who believed certain rights could not be taken away by any government or man is quit comical as well, considering progressive dogma.

Progressives as we know them came to prominence during Theodore Roosevelt.

Funny I actually saw an article saying a similar thing because if the founders were conservative we would still be pledging allegiance to the king. Yikes.