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August 11, 2012 07:32 AM UTC

It's a Romney/Ryan Ticket

  • 115 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: USA TODAY with multiple sources confirming:

Rep. Paul Ryan will be named Mitt Romney’s running mate on Saturday, ending weeks of speculation about the No. 2 slot on the GOP ticket.

The Associated Press and several TV networks confirmed the news.

Ryan, 42, is best known as the chairman of the House Budget Committee and author of a dramatic plan to overhaul Medicare, the government-run health insurance program for senior citizens.

—–

According to NBC News, it’s not a rumor. Other news outlets are reporting a strong possibility that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney will select Rep. Paul Ryan, a conservative icon and author of the controversial “Ryan Plan” budget, as his vice-presidential running mate.

We’ll update tomorrow morning or as confirmation arrives.

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115 thoughts on “It’s a Romney/Ryan Ticket”

  2. … in Ryan’s hometown airport.

    The announcement tomorrow will be aboard the USS Wisconsin.

    And we’ve got multiple sources saying it’s Ryan.

    It’s either Ryan or a good head fake.

    Romney/Ryan 2012: If you want healthcare, just get a job!

  3. putting people out of work and will do anything to avoid paying taxes at the same rate as a middling wage earner is teaming up with the guy who wants to leave seniors at the mercy of private insurers with nothing but a coupon? The folks who write Dem ads ought to love it.

  4. Willard’s just decided to outsource “his” detailed economic plan for recovery to some hireling . . . kinda’ fits really.

    Ought be quite the Presidential debates — Willard arguing for his Veep’s plan . . .  

    1. I am genuinely surprised by this. Stunned, even. I thought he would pick the boring, but safe and electorally smart, Senator Rob Portman of Ohio. Is this the bold shake things up McCain moment that he is going to regret three months from now?

      1. Ryan brings nothing but trouble to the ticket. Now Romney owns Ryan’s nasty budget, and the whole “Is Romney going to steal money from the poor to give to the rich” goes from plausible speculation to absolute certainty.

        Romney has placed his entire bet on the idea that the only reason McCain lost is that the far right wing stayed home in 2008. But he’s wrong, and he’s made it much harder for himself. It’s still not trivial or automatic for Obama to win, but it would take a pretty big screw-up for him to lose.

        1. if Romney assumes McCain lost because the far right stayed home in 2008. The far right has a disproportionate influence within the GOP, but much less so in the general.

          McCain was in a statistical dead heat coming out of the Republican convention end of August. Then the catacysmic meltdown of the economy just a few weeks later sealed his fate.

          “It’s the economy stupid”  

        2. I think Ryan’s plan for Medicare is the wrong approach, and his support for massive tax cuts undermines his credibility on deficit reduction. In addition to spending cuts you also need to bring in more revenue and it’s questionable whether tax cuts would result in a net positive increase in revenue.

          Obama better have an alternative to counter Ryan when the issue of deficit reduction comes up, or he’s going to be in trouble.  

          1. He put entitlements on the table and challenged Republicans to match it by letting the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest expire.  They couldn’t do it.

            This actually plays to Obama’s strengths because it reignites the debate over the Bush tax cuts and phony Republicans are about reducing the deficit when they won’t allow any increase in revenue.  Ryan is going to get bloody defending keeping tax cuts for the rich while destroying Medicare as we know it and forcing the poor to pay for his draconian budget.  Very bloody.  Very very bloody.

  6. I never expected a birthday present from Mittens.I couldn’t have chosen better for him myself.Now let’s see the old billionaire sell himself as a friend of the middle class. As I said when McCain chose the Dim Bulb From Alaska, If he’s not done yet, they’d better flip him over before he burns.  

    1. when you just registered three months ago.

      Seriously, it’s hard to make good predictions, but you only get to gloat about your track record if you have one. Good line though. I look forward to seeing all your posts couched in cooking metaphors and will be SORELY DISAPPOINTED if you stop using them.

      1. Just wanna say, I was the first to call Ryan as VEEP candidate here.  Can’t believe Mittens did it, but I did call it first.   Neener.

        /juvenile behavior (at least for the next 10 minutes or so).

        Tried to do a linkie, but unlike David, I am technologically impaired.

    2. When I say SORELY DISAPPOINTED, I mean it will be even worse than when Libertad 2.0 starting posting serious analysis of various candidates electoral prospects instead of just being a Libertad parody.

      But it will be not quite as bad as if “dywer” wrote a deep and substantial analysis in 3000 words of the effect of policies inspired by private-sector educational corporations on public K-12 education. That, Fredo, would break my heart.

      It would be somewhere in between, that’s what I’m saying. Cooking analogies, that’s all I’m asking for.

      I just had a horrible feeling that this post would be less funny in the morning after I managed to sleep. I’m going to hurry up and post it before that feeling makes me want to not post it.

          1. I haven’t heard anyone say Ryan is stupid, have you? He’s not a witch or a beer, either.

            Ryan is a 7-term congress-critter. He’s got a long, long record of including his current budget blueprint to kill Medicare and 2005 sponsorship of a bill to privatize social security. He supports full civil rights for zygotes.

            This election just went from being a referendum on Obama to a referendum on Tea Party policies.

            1. This election just went from being a referendum on Obama to a referendum on Tea Party policies.

              Ryan could also help the Tea Party by transforming their image from a  bunch of ignorant, angry, old white people who don’t stand for anything to a constituency that does stand for something (in the form of Paul Ryan).

               

              1. A small minority of angry old white farts who think that they can bully the rest of the country with their bellicose hatreds.  

                Ideological descendants of the John Birch Society, Teapublicans huff and puff and every time one of their candidates loses big time in a general election, they convince themselves that it was because the candidate wasn’t pure enough ideologically.

                Population demographics and changing cultural attitudes escaped their attention until it was too late as they flew over the cliff of ideological extremism and into perennial general election loser territory.

              2. will have to be based on what we’ve learned works: don’t attack the weaknesses, attack the strengths. In Ryan’s case it’s the idea that he’s smart. He’s not. His famous “budget” is a few pages long and doesn’t specify the tax deduction eliminations it requires to eventually balance. In 20 years. Assuming of course that the next 10 Congresses agree to be bound by some Randian fantasy.

                Ryan is perceived as a smart Republican in much the same way as a 1-year-old is perceived as smart if he can say a single word more than once. The standards are just not that high.  

                1. He easily falls under the sway of powerful ideologues (Ayn Rand — Every Person for themselves; Jack Kemp — “Ryan’s mentor Jack Kemp, even considered spending constraints utterly unnecessary”), only to pull a 180 degree reversal when he’s faced with the underlying fraud of his mentors (Whuh, she’s an atheist? — Whoa! Deficits do  matter?).

                  Ryan currently has a similar Svengali effect on his Tea Party acolytes in Congress.  While they may think his ideological rigidity is great, I’m certain Obama and team have the intellect and facts to expose the fundamental flaws of the Ryan Budget Plan.

                  First and foremost — when the opening gambit is a massive tax cut for the wealthy, you know they aren’t serious about deficit reduction — they merely want implement a massive ideological experiment in social Darwinism.

      2. But his budget scares the beejeezus out of many constituencies and fear is a much greater motivator than contempt and voting against can be as compelling as voting for.  I bet a lot of less than enthusiastic Dem leaning voters just got much more motivated to stop the GOP ticket.  

        1. How Obama and his party define Ryan and how well the Democrats come up with alternatives to counter Romney and Ryan on fiscal policy may have a lot with who ends up in the White House this fall.  

          1. easy to write anti ads so I think Dems will take this opportunity and milk it for all it’s worth.  No complicated nuanced stuff required. Scaring many constituencies over the Ryan budget, now the Romney/Ryan budget, should not be all that difficult. For a change Dems don’t have to be any more nuanced than the GOP to get their message across.  

            1. With the addition of Ryan, it wouldn’t surprise me to see entitlement spending come up either formally (e.g. fall presidential debates) or more informally (e.g. attack ads). The Obama campaign better come up with a plausible alternative to the Ryan plan, that’s not the status quo.  

              1. and addressing of entitlements?

                The GOP has no fiscal policy beyond slash and burn for all except the rich who will then trickle down on us, a policy that has never worked. Period.  

                Their “entitlements” policy is to end programs that have been extremely successful in keeping seniors out of poverty and in the business of contributing to the economy (and which could be easily strengthened by relatively painless solutions such as raising caps to make our tax system less regressive), and replacing those decades old successful programs with a return to senior poverty and further impoverishing the middle class.

                There isn’t so much a need for  countering such obviously horrible policy as there is for simply explaining it.  An easy to understand message offensive is what is required here, not defensive countering. Put the GOP on the defensive for a change.  That’s where they deserve to be with nothing but failed, middle class impoverishing policy to offer.

  7. http://thinkprogress.org/polit…

    On Sunday, Newt Gingrich blasted Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposal calling it “right-wing social engineering” and “radical.” On Monday, he defended his remarks, blaming the liberal media for stoking a controversy by taking them “out of context.”

    By yesterday afternoon, he was calling Ryan to apologize. Then last night, in a remarkable interview on Fox News, Gingrich argued that it was dishonest to quote anything he said two days ago:

    “I want to make sure every House Republican is protected from some kind of dishonest Democratic ad. So let me say on the record, any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood.”

    I was a little worried that after Gingrich’s spectacular campaign flameout that we might not actually get to see these ads. Thank goodness. Looking forward to Factcheck telling me how unfair they are. But especially with Gingrich now back in public as the attack dog for the crazy welfare stuff, it would be moronic not to run such an ad.

    1. the “Economics Symposium” that was planned for Tampa’s two-day “Newt University” is going to have to be cancelled now?  

      Maybe Newt can fill that void with some kind of a vacation travelouge . . . there’s got to be someone heading toTampa who is able to get their hands on a few slides of Cayman Island hideaway getaway spots?

  8. Copied from commenter simoom at Little Green Footballs (which, it still cracks me up to say, is now more leftist than Daily Kos, but that’s another story):

    Some Ryan quotes:

    Link:

    “I just want to speak to you a little bit about Ayn Rand and what she meant to me in my life and [in] the fight we’re engaged here in Congress. I grew up on Ayn Rand, that’s what I tell people.”

    “I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are.”

    “It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff. We start with Atlas Shrugged. People tell me I need to start with The Fountainhead then go to Atlas Shrugged [laughter]. There’s a big debate about that. We go to Fountainhead, but then we move on, and we require Mises and Hayek as well.”

    “But the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.”

    “And when you look at the twentieth-century experiment with collectivism-that Ayn Rand, more than anybody else, did such a good job of articulating the pitfalls of statism and collectivism-you can’t find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism than Ayn Rand.”

    “It’s so important that we go back to our roots to look at Ayn Rand’s vision, her writings, to see what our girding, under-grounding [sic] principles are.”

    “Because there is no better place to find the moral case for capitalism and individualism than through Ayn Rand’s writings and works.”

    But then he found out she was an athiest:

    Link:

    “I reject her philosophy,” Ryan says firmly. “It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a person’s view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas,” who believed that man needs divine help in the pursuit of knowledge. “Don’t give me Ayn Rand,” he says.

    Links are definitely worth reading in full.

  9. Willard Mitt Romney, scion to family fortune and prep credentialed and silver-spooned, needs a Man of the People like Paul Ryan.  Here are the key facts, and why this man should be a Romney muscle-in-the-chest-beat away from being POTUS.

    The experience of the ticket is mind-boggling. Vulture capitalist cum Liberal governor cum Olympic fiasco rescuer (massive public expenditures BTW, including the then-largest public works project ever, the reconstruction of I-15) + the guy who worked for his daddy’s company then jumped to the taxpayers’ dime where he has settled ever since, over a decade now.  From daddy to dole just like that!  Goodthing he’s heartless, though, that’ll help with the base.  

     One of Ryan’s summer jobs in college was as an Oscar Mayer

    salesman in Minnesota, peddling turkey bacon and a new line

    called “Lunchables” to supermarkets.

    *        Ryan worked as a marketing consultant for his family’s construction business before being elected to Congress. The company — Ryan Incorporated Central — began as an earthmoving business created by his great-grandfather in 1884.

    …

    *        For fun, Ryan noodles catfish, catching them barehanded with a fist down their throats.

    Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politic…

    1. I don’t see how it’s any more “heartless” than traditional hook fishing, or hunting.

      It’s an odd thing for a WI boy to be doing. This could help solidify the redneck vote, which was dangerously close to voting for B. HOOSane ‘bama.

      Solved that mystery.

  11. What a gift.  

    I imagine a lot of fence straddling, conservative seniors just fell off of the fence.  Or will, between now and November.  Mittens might as well take out ads saying, “Don’t vote for me, gray America!”

    Willard obviously didn’t ask for McCain’s advice, he just followed in his footsteps. While Palin was mostly just a light weight, she lacked substance of any kind that would turn voters off.  Ryan, OTOH, has a record that is actual ammunition for the Dems.

    There’s pee pee dancing in the White House this morning.  

  14. Did you see, as Paul Ryan was strolling down the gangway there, the clouds part…and sitting up on them I could have sworn I glanced…with their little faces…up there, smiling down…  

  15. is stabbing his last remaining bastion of support (besides the 1%), i.e. the old white guys, in the back.  Paul Ryan, the gift that will keep on giving–to the Dems, that is.

    Went to bed with a headache and woke up to this gift.

    Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mittens.

  16. Willard and Paul have a tough decision to make.  ANYthing Ryan does in regards releasing tax returns puts the spotlight back on Mitt.  As I see it, he could:

    1.  Release the same year(s) as Mittens.

    2.  Not release anything until the heat to comply with the law is overbearing.  Could be late in the election season by the time this happens.

    3.  Release, say, three years.  But then he should expect the call from Mitt, “WTF you doing, Paul?”

    They are heading for the edge of Niagra falls without a paddle or a barrel.  

  17. This is straight out of the Bush playbook – do everything you can to charge up your base. The number of truly independent voters is so small and the remainder are so evenly divided, that getting a larger percentage of your base to vote is gigantic.

    As to using Ryan to get the retired vote – his proposal leaves all over 55 (key voters) alone and only screws those that are younger. So he can keep those voters and play on their belief that the following generation is a bunch of undeserving lazy bums.

    I hope Ryan becomes a drag on the campaign. But it could well be a plus.

    1. the fact that Arapagopher thinks Ryan is a good idea is enough to show you that picking Ryan is a dream gift to the Dems.

      Because Arapagopher is wrong every time he touches his keyboard.

      (We’ve been through this part of the lecture before, remember.)

        1. This is hardly an original thought but John Kerry thought the baselesss accusations in the Swift Boat Veterans ads would be so absurd that no one would believe them, so he didn’t devote a lot of time an energy reponding. As sleazy and false as the ads were, Kerry’s failure to respond helped define him negatively.

          Here in 2012, the Democrats should not automatically  assume voters will find the Ryan plan so absurd that they won’t vote for a Romney-Ryan ticket.

          The Democrats still have a chance of winning, but it will long, hard-fought fight.    

          1. That’s not a mistake Obama’s team is making.  They aren’t sitting back and assuming things. Look at the ads they’re running and the results they’re getting.  Whether they ultimately win or lose, there really isn’t much grounds for comparison to Kerry on that score.  

            1. …..that many Dems and probably all Publicans were whining that Obama’s ads were too mean.  That people were going to tune him out or dislike him for such tactics.  (Tactics like the Pubs have been using for decades.)

              Looks like the Obama team was right.  Maybe it’s because Americans love a good fight.

    2. “run to the center for the general”?   Has Team Willard just officially signaled massive fatigue and it’s incapablity to shake their etch-a-sketch any harder?

      Nope, Willard just let the whole world know that he’s more cowed now by his party’s tin-foil-and-ass-hats than ever . . . and, besides if the little people won’t vote the way they’re, told we can always fire them and find replacements somewhere in China.

        1. At least in recent history. As evidence I would cite the fact that third-party candidates did respectably until 2004. If you have evidence to the contrary, I’d like to hear it.

          1. Bush I and Clinton were both fundamentally moderates so if we were approaching that point we might not have seen it in their elections. But Ross Perot was not pulling equally from both sides, he was more an early edition of the tea party. So maybe he was the voters pushing for a more polarized choice.

            But I think we did get that in 2000. Bush tried to appeal to the middle too, but they focused very strongly on getting the base charged up and voting.

            Regardless, we’re now at that point.

      2. and the state Govs & rightie SoS fools will do what they can to depress the vote and purge the rolls any way possible.  

        Seems Mitt is doing everything he can to lose the center but somehow his mathletes have figured out a way to win with most of the far right fringe and 1%ers.

    3. Medicare has been a promise to this country for almost 50 years now.  Social Security for 75.  Everyone who is older benefits, and most of their parents benefited, too.  Shouldn’t their kids have the same security?

      1. for old fogies and socialist weenies. Today’s Repulicans are mighty Randian Гјbermensch — rugged no-compromise individualists — confident in their boundless intelligence and capability to mold the future; men and women who can love freely without any limitations or social constraints; people who can suck electricity out of thin air.  The future belongs to these bold bringers of light.  

      2. that said even seniors didn’t support the Ryan “budget.” This was a surprise to many Republicans, who somehow assumed that people who were getting things for themselves wouldn’t give a fuck if their kids didn’t get shit. Turns out people actually care about their kids and grandkids.

        I thought Republicans would have learned a lesson from this, but as usual I overestimated their intelligence and empathy. Silly me.

      1. Anyone who doesn’t think the Democrats have all arguments pre-won is a concern troll. I sure hope you aren’t doing phone banking because with your attitude you’ll convince the people you talk to… to vote Republican.

  18. People on the left conflate two things about Palin and then apply the sum to Ryan. Palin is politically pure tea party. She also clearly was of below average intelligence with no intellectually curiosity. On the left we found her unacceptable for both reasons. But for the independents and even some on the right, it was just the second reason that made her unacceptable.

    Ryan is not stupid.

    1. So instead of cult of personality arguments, we’ll get to focus on the misguided priorities of the Ryan Budget Plan.

      The only danger is that the plan’s drastic outcomes are so unbelievable, that voters dismiss them as unreal.

      Obama’s margin over Romney “more than doubles” when the election is framed on the two candidates’ position on the Ryan budget. That of course, assumes that the election can be so framed, and that the voters will accept the assumption. But as the Priorities crowd discovered, voters have a hard time believing any politician could be supporting 20 percent cuts in education, an elimination of the refundable tax credit for children or dramatically changing Medicare. That is simply too extreme to be believed.

      So the Dems’ job is to frame these GOP promises to take from the poor and middleclass, and give to the wealthy as concrete realities that only the voters themselves can prevent.

    2. i know of one truly independent voter. He’s a 50-something attorney and full-fledged NRA type. Because of the latter, he was fully intending to vote for Romney, despite the fact that everyone pointed out the lack of interest in guns Obama has expressed. (This was settled with him months ago, before the Aurora massacre brought guns back into the discussion.)

      But now, because of the Ryan VP candidacy, he’s back to the Obama camp. Because Ryan would have destroyed Social Security if his 2005 bill had passed, and he wants to destroy Medicare and every other piece of social legislation that’s passed since the 1890s.

      Ryan isn’t stupid. That makes him even scarier to the center than Palin.

      1. but what is your evidence?

        The guy is as dumb as a box of rocks as far as I can tell. All of his policy proposals are a half-finished wet dream of a 14-year-old Ayn Rand fan, and any mathematical analysis of their effects lead to the unambiguous statement that they just can’t possibly work the way his tutors tell him they can.

        Seriously, name anything that makes you think Paul Ryan is smart (and I don’t mean “smart for a Republican”).

        1. That he can sound credible spouting discredited ideologically-based claptrap to uncritical acolytes using pseudo-intellectual gibberish to fill in the otherwise empty space between talking points.

  19. A Catholic and a Mormon on the ticket together, A lot has changed since 1960

    Romney+Ryan = Bain+Pain. How do you sugarcoat that with independent?

    From Herman Cain…

    Some will like this choice, some won’t, but you can bet that liberals will hate whatever choice itis

    Does anyone here HATE the choice? Where do they find these guys?

    More of these twipsters here:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

  20. is that the 2012 elections now become less of a referendum on the economic policies and problems of the last four years, and instantly become more of a referendum on a Ryan-Republican plan (Team Willard just made their man Candidate Dunsel).   The conversation has moved from the past to the future, and that is much better for Obama.

    When the dust finally settles in November and the voters are seen as having rejected the Ryan plan, it’ll be back to the drawing boards for our demographically challenged Republican friends.  

    1. The majority of voters in this country think Obama cannot fix the economy. If it’s a referendum between something that isn’t working and something that may work, well may beats won’t.

      Romney/Ryan have to sell their economic plan. But Obama is stuck with his record which is stasis for the last 3 years. If that’s what the election turns on, Romney could win.

      1. those post-Reagan-deregulated-gilded-age-trickle-down-privatization-tax cut-job-creator schemes have such a stupendous track record?  That was some fucking awesome competent execution, huh?

        Shit, David, if it’s truly a question of “may” versus “won’t,” do you really want to be a cheerleader for the Ryan/Dunsel ticket?

        You can be a proponent for anti-gravity machines all you want, but for the foreseeable future, at least, when you drop an anvil you’re still likely to smash your big toe.  Likewise, there’s not yet been any repeal of the law of voodoo economics — looks real nice on paper, but it won’t float.

        Besides, you missed my point, the Republicans now have to talk about their own plan.  That’s gonna automatically cut down on the time available for demonizing that black Muslim terrorist-loving American-economy-destroying socialist.  Republicans have always been much better at demonizing than explaining anything.  

          1. “But the ones that matter are the low information voters who are not going to invest the time required to learn the details.”

            With the unprecedented spending going into this campaign, it’s a safe bet that the Dems are going to rake Ryan over the coals with his own record. The ads really write themselves.

          2. recently some guy here was mewling daily about how Obama’s biggest failure of competency was not using his Presidential bully pulpit to take his case, and his plans, directly to the American people to overcome Republican intransigence.

            Remember that guy? . . . seemed to have trouble seeing the forest for the Leafs, IMHO.  But my digression digresses . . . anyway,  it doesn’t matter what happened to him because, gone or not, he now gets automatically what he said was most missing from the Obama administration . . . the election this year will be more about explaining plans directly to the American people.  Their vote in November becomes the populist electoral voice that that guy promised could make a difference in pushing a meaningful recovery plan through a hostile Congress.  One could hope that guy recognizes his win . . . I kinda hope he gets his way, as well as an extra long extension cord.  

          3. You are bound and determined to refuse to see even the possibility of anything positive for Obama. The public hates the Ryan plan whenever they are polled about its components and the messaging to make sure everyone knows what’s in it is simple.  This gives Dems the chance to run great ads that don’t require nuance or lengthy explanation. Obama ads in that vein were already taking a toll before the Ryan pick.  

            This pick motivates lots of middling Dem leaners not thrilled with Obama to get out and  vote against the coming of a Ryan/Romney administration. Fantastic for goosing fund raising. Doesn’t make the election a slam dunk but your stubborn insistence on seeing nothing but gloom and doom here is pretty ridiculous.

            1. What worries me is a lot of what was posted here is along the lines of “everyone knows how awfully the Ryan plan is and therefore we will win.”

              I think this has just made it a much harder fight. About half this country philosophically agrees with Ryan. They may not like what that means in details but they agree with the enteral idea. Thats hard to fight.

              If most of the posts were instead “this election is now going to be a referendum on the future of social programs in this country and we have to fight like hell to make the case that the federal government has been a powerful positive force and we need to continue to ake care of those that need help.” Then I would be happy.

              1. actually in his plan is opposed by huge majorities and Dems can take advantage of that by making sure the public can connect the dots doesn’t cheer you up, even a little?

                Also your statement about the posts is a little straw doggish.  What I’m seeing is people pointing out that this is a choice that provides Dems with some very good opportunities.  Have it your way, Dave but don’t expect everyone to be as completely discouraged as you are so determined to be.  

                1. I saw some polling, I forget where, but it was commissioned by Begala’s company and basically said that people were vehemently opposed to all the aspects of Paul Ryan’s “budget,” but did not seriously believe that any politician would actually propose such things. If you say in an ad that “Ryan’s budget would eliminate Medicare in ten years,” even though it’s completely accurate, most people would just not believe that’s possible. It’s why Politifact and Factcheck and whatnot could say such charges are false. Because how could anyone believe any politician is really such an asshole?

                  It will take a lot of work to convince voters that the Ryan “budget” does what it says it does.

                  1. paired with Rmoney.  

                    Paul ‘Eddie Muster’ Ryan reinforces the narrative that is the box TeamObama already stuffed MittWillard in.  Outsource American jobs, offshore banks to stash American-made profits (from the jobs outsourcing), more tax cuts for him and his rarefied buddies, and a VP candidate that wants to end Medicare and toss (the next generation of) old people out on the street to face, well, people like Mitt Rmoney using his power first and foremost to enhance their ownership in the .01% class at the expense of everyone else.  

                    Ryan is a brilliant choice.  For TeamObama.  

                  2. SXP — here is the article that you might be looking for Romney’s incredible extremes

                    Mitt Romney’s tax and spending plans are so irresponsible, so cruel, so extreme that they are literally incredible. Voters may find it hard to believe anyone would support such things, so they are likely to discount even factual descriptions as partisan distortion.

                    The pro-Obama New Priorities PAC stumbled across this phenomena early in 2012 in its focus group testing. When they informed a focus group that Romney supported the budget plan by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), and thus championed ending Medicare as we know it while also championing tax cuts for the wealthy, focus group participants simply didn’t believe it. No politician could be so clueless.

                    So the Dems really need to make the realities of the Ryan Budget tangible to the low information voters.

        2. You’re right that the Republicans will have to talk about their own plans; however, the Democrats will also have to come up with an alternative to counter the Republican’s plans.

          1. You talk like someone who watches a lot of cable news and thinks that makes him very well-informed. Ryan’s budget is vague about everything that matters (which middle-class tax breaks he needs to eliminate), and Obama has proposed budgets that are more specific.

    2. The conversation has moved from the past to the future.–my enthusiastic emphasis

      It’s been nearly impossible for Obama to lay out a larger, coherent, progressive vision for his second term (and beyond) without acknowledging weak performance in his first, no matter that any shortcomings lay at the foot of tactical Republican obstructionism.

      With the direct challenge of a regressive, middle class destroying, anti-American Dream vision embodied in this Romney/Rand ticket Obama can move even further beyond “It’s the economy,stupid” and “Romney=Bain=personal cruelty” and give America what it really needs: a vision of its citizens not only recovering but achieving new heights of security, achievement and happiness.

      Let’s hope Obama pivots to this new, grander message — quickly. He’s been given the opening.

  22. Now, some of you Socialist liberal scum will probably try to deny me that honor because  I predicted Portman in the poll yesterday.  But this is the Age of the Romney Flop and I predicted Ryan all along.  

    Shake Shake Shake

    Shake Shake Shake

    Shake your Etch-a-Sketch

       I’m always first no matter how long it takes me!

    2. Choosing Ryan effectively forces Romney to take positions, which could benefit Romney by helping him define himself in something other than what the Obama campaign has done. However, the choice of Ryan could also backfire and reinforce Romney’s image of being out of touch.  We’ll see how this works out for Romney later this fall.  

  23. Before you get too enthralled with Ryan’s deeply-held principles regarding deficit-reduction:

    Like many Rand devotees, Ryan gravitated to the supply-side-economics wing of the Republican Party, which furnished an economic rationale for policies to which they were already morally sympathetic. The supply-siders remade the Republican Party, replacing its traditional emphasis on balanced budgets with a relentless obsession with cutting tax rates, especially for the most affluent. Reducing taxes, they believed, could unleash untold prosperity; some, like Ryan’s mentor Jack Kemp, even considered spending constraints utterly unnecessary. “I learned economics working for Jack Kemp,” Ryan said in 1999.

    Ryan has, retroactively, depicted himself as a dissenter from the fiscal profligacy of the Bush administration, and reporters have mostly accepted his account at face value. (“Ryan watched his party’s leadership inflate the deficit by cutting tax rates like Kemp conservatives while spending like Kardashians,” wrote Time last year.) In reality, Ryan was a staunch ally in Bush’s profligacy, dissenting only to urge Bush to jack up the deficit even more.

    “We noticed that the green-eyeshade, austerity wing of the party was afraid of class warfare,” Ryan said during Bush’s first term. “They fear increases in the debt, and they were overlooking issues of growth, opportunity, and free markets.” For those uninitiated in the tribal lingo of Beltway conservatives, this may sound like gibberish. But those inside the conservative subculture invest these buzzwords with deep meaning. “Green eyeshade” is a term of abuse appropriated by the supply-siders to describe Republicans who still cared more about deficit control than cutting taxes. “Growth” and “opportunity” mean tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the rich, and “class warfare” means any criticism thereof. Ryan’s centrist admirers hear his frequent confessions that both parties have failed as an ideological concession.  What he means is that Republicans were insufficiently fanatical in their devotion to cutting taxes for the rich.

    In 2001, Ryan led a coterie of conservatives who complained that George W. Bush’s $1.2 trillion tax cut was too small, and too focused on the middle class. In 2003, he lobbied Republicans to pass Bush’s deficit financed prescription-drug benefit, which bestowed huge profits on the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. In 2005, when Bush campaigned to introduce private accounts into Social Security, Ryan fervently crusaded for the concept. He was the sponsor in the House of a bill to create new private accounts funded entirely by borrowing, with no benefit cuts. Ryan’s plan was so staggeringly profligate, entailing more than $2 trillion in new debt over the first decade alone, that even the Bush administration opposed it as “irresponsible.”

    So it looks like in the Hypocrisy Race, Romney takes Gold, but Ryan is a close Silver Medalist.

    Yet to be determined will be if the press simply parrots the superficial goals of the budget plan while ignoring or glossing over the inevitable results that would only worsen our current economy.  

    I wish I could say with confidence that reality will prevail.

  25. Amplifying on my noting above that he went into public service via the government, Salon says:


    Ryan’s private sector leadership experience: None. According to the New Yorker, “In 1998, that gap was enough of a concern for Ryan that he briefly became a ‘marketing consultant’ at the family business, an obvious bit of rГ©sumГ© puffing.”

    Number of years Ryan has worked in Washington since graduating college in 1992: 17

    Pretty ballsy for a guy spouting free enterprise, small government, etc.

    “I am a Republican, therefore I am a hypocrite.”

    1. Ryan brings more public-service experience to the ticket. Being Governor of Massachusetts (or any state) is legitimate public-service experience.

      Romney has had a tendency to downplay his public-sector experience, while emphasizing his private sector experience, which puts him in an awkward position: if you don’t like public-service, why are you running for it?

      1. his public service record is limited and thin, small potatoes at the best.   His one signature public service accomplishment is one his party won’t let him run on.  His private sector accomplishments of job destruction and tax avoidance have limited electoral appeal outside of the Billionaire Boys Club. He’s got nothing to run on except his Veep’s plan for ending the American middle class.  

      2. Abysmal economic record.  His one signature legislative success he won’t defend.  Effectively self-castrates calling his nuts Obamacare.

        (And, off topic, but…..As I had hoped way back, Obama has embraced Obamacare.  From derogatory to positive.)

        I would say his time as CEO of the Olympics was true public service.  

      1. Back in the day.  Paul “Gut Medicare” Ryan went from Richy Rich heir to taxpayers trough just like that, where he has sat ever since–great medical coverage (why take it out of the family wealth when the US citizens so happily foot the bill??!), nice retirement, and no performance standards to speak of (other than being able to endorse and deposit, endorse and deposit).  

        Yes, that “Executive experience” is so very important, eh Willard?

        At least now this will take the focus off what Mittsy’s “Executive experience” was all about, playing a rigged system to maximum personal advantage–civil wars, death squads, and tax shelters included.  

    1. To be expected, just like the bump that follows the conventions.  Nothing but a moment.

      With Ryan’s tax plan, Willard’s tax return issue will remain front and center until November.  The problem may have sort of gone away with another veep candidate, but with Ryan, it will NOT go away.

      I’m sure OFA is working very hard to find credible sources who can say what those returns (don’t?) have in them.  

  27. at least, so far.

    People think they’re gonna get a voucher that means they can just go out and pick up any ol’ insurance they want.  One delusional individual thought that meant he could just sign up for the same plan that Congress gets.

    I have been explaining that the voucher is really just a discount, a cents-off coupon for insurance.

    If they want to know how much of a discount, I tell them I’ve never seen specifics.

    As a small business owner, my last insurance was $1000 a month for my family of five, with a total $35,000 a year deductible.  With lifelong exclusions on covering simple conditions, like a urinary tract infection. Even at 50% off, my old insurance would be full of suck.

    Obamacare will help with some of these issues, but not if the Publicans repeal it.

    Even Fox Newsyites have understood that.

    1. So coupled with Red States cutting Medicaid support, and GOP-led support for increases in private insurance participation and profits, your voucher will become a cruel reminder of the health care you can’t afford any more.

      1. They could well fully fund it the first year. But they’ll tie it to the general inflation rate. They have a fair point that medical inflation is unsustainable and we’ve reached that point. But individual purchasers will not have the ability to control that inflationary rate other than to forgo treatment.

        1. So assuming they can roll back Obamacare, prevent Outcome-based packages of services, and privatize Medicare (ie — keep the profit motive as the primary incentive for coverage decisions), vouchers provide the worst of all possible choices for consumers and businesses.

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