The New Budget Deal - Spitting In The Wind

 

Paul Ryan and Democrat Senator Patty Murray have completed budget negotiations to avoid another government shutdown.

It isn't pretty.

It amounts to a two-year deal that would reduce the deficit by a piddling $23 billion over ten years without raising taxes. It would also increase discretionary spending ( the money not on autopilot for entitlements like ObamaCare) to $1.012 trillion for fiscal year 2014 and $1.014 trillion for fiscal year 2015.To put this in context , our deficit is now $17 trillion. $2.3 billion per year doesn't even cover the annual interest on that money at current rates.

The money to replace the actual cuts of the sequester, $63 billion, would be raised by 'new revenues', known to normal humans as increased taxes and fees and by "future cuts," dependent on the Democrats actually going along with them. Again, in the real world, this is known as 'hey, lend me $20 until the end of the month and I swear, pinky promise that this time I really will pay you back.'

Oh, and that $63 billion? It comes, among other things, from vastly increased airline 'security fees' which won't go to the TSA but into general revenues, cuts to federal and military pensions and higher payments for federal insurance of private pensions. Hey, the little people won't miss it!

Oh, and just for giggles..there a little provision stuck deep inside that limit's the GOP's ability to block future tax increases:

The bill includes language from the Senate Democrats’ budget that voids senators’ ability to raise a budget “point of order” against replacing the sequester cuts with tax increases.

The process is quite complicated, but in practice it grants Harry Reid the authority to send tax increases to the House with a bare majority, rather than the 60-vote threshold that would be required under a point of order.

The provision has angered key Republican senators. Reeling from Harry Reid’s unprecedented use of the “nuclear option” to end the filibuster on executive-branch nominations, they are dismayed that Paul Ryan would have backed another limit to their power.

“This is an appalling power grab that should never have been allowed to be in a final agreement. It’s essentially the ‘nuclear option’ part two, eroding minority rights in the Senate even further. Harry Reid must be very happy,” a Senate GOP aide says.

Here's Paul Ryan trying to sell this on Mark Levin's radio show:



I give Ryan props for appearing here and taking a shot at selling this to an avowed fiscal conservative like Levin.But essentially, I think Levin has it right...it's increased spending today in exchange for cuts, maybe,tomorrow. Remember, after the last budget deal, the House only passed appropriation bills that increased spending and not the ones that actually cut spending once the deal was cut.

As Ryan mentions several times, the club the Democrats are using is concentrating the sequester cuts on our already badly affected military. And the fact that the House GOP leadership apparently has no one whom can explain to the American people in real terms what this ongoing Ponzi scheme means, how it will affect them and their children and why a government shutdown to force some fiscal sanity on President Obama and his minions might be necessary.

As an aside, I have to admit that given his support for amnesty for illegal aliens, something that will vastly increase the deficit because of chain migration and the government benefits that entails, Ryan's talk about balanced budgets rings mockingly hollow.

However, Ryan is quite correct that minus the threat of a shutdown as an incentive, President Obama and his fellow Democrats are never going to fix the problem, and that this was probably the best deal he could make. Whether that's an adequate excuse for collaborating in the mess and sharing the blame in exchange for minor concessions is one I'll let you decide for yourself.

Certainly GOP House Speaker John Boehner thinks it a grand idea.

Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and virtually every conservative think tank think it's not.

Eventually this sort of nonsense becomes unsustainable and corrects itself. But when it gets to that point, the pain and suffering are a lot more intense than it would be otherwise.

Unfortunately, our Ruling Class in Washington with access to Other People's Money they did nothing to earn will be just fine, thank you. That's the even bigger tragedy.

What The Reaction To The VP Debate Proves About The Left

The Left and most partisan Democrats reacted to last night's debate and Joe Biden's unprecedented exhibition with ecstatic joy. Andrew Sullivan has climbed back off the ledge, Chris Matthews is eating and showering again and the the Obama Media is high fiving each other.It's revealing to take a look at what they're so overjoyed about.

Martha Raddatz is the left's new hero. As CNN now admits, rather than moderating, she became 'the third debater'. She aided and abetted Joe Biden by allowing him to interrupt Paul Ryan 82 times, concentrated almost exclusively on Ryan when it came to followups, and even interrupted Ryan herself a number of times. Once or twice, she even interrupted Ryan while he was attempting to respond after Biden interrupted him during Ryan's speaking time with an outburst.  And whenever Biden looked like he was losing ground, she decided it was time to move on to another topic. Even worse, she allowed Biden to conduct himself like an obnoxious twelve-year-old during the debate, laughing, grimacing, making interjections and mugging during Ryan's speaking time.There was never  a word from the 'moderator' on Biden's disgraceful conduct.

As an example of how one sided the moderating was, Joe Biden ended up with eleven minutes more speaking time than Paul Ryan.

This is the sort of performance that has inspired the Democrat base. Ignoring Biden's outright lies and misstatements  on entitlements, the HHS mandate, Iran, his voting record and Libya, they're applauding something entirely different.

While most Republicans simply think the left is wrong, the Democrat  left thinks Republicans are evil. And as such, Republicans are not entitled to respect, decency or even basic civility. Anyone who has studied child psychology or even dealt with young  children on a regular basis  understands this reaction quite well - 'you impede me, you won't give me what I want, therefore I hate you.'

The more obnoxious and bullying Joe Biden became, the worse he behaved, the better they liked it and the louder they cheered.Biden's entire performance was designed to gin up the Democrat's leftist base, morose and bitter after President Obama's abysmal performance in the last debate.

And no, it doesn't work that way in reverse. Had Paul Ryan lost his temper or responded to Biden on the same juvenile level, conservatives and Republicans would have been the first to call him out for his conduct. Because essentially, they're the adults in the room.They have standards.While it may not have always been true, it certainly is true today.

Ryan demonstrated this by remaining polite, keeping his cool under fire from both Raddatz and Biden and staying on message. He was, for almost the entire debate,  businesslike, steady, and on-point.

And however loudly the Democrat's leftist base applauds they lost an important battle in both debates.

The caricatures of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan the Obama Campaign spent millions to implant as, respectively,  heartless plutocrat and the man pushing granny over the cliff have been erased in the minds of independents, undecideds and Democrats whose support for Obama was soft.

They've seen for themselves who Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are, without the media filter, and what they observed are two men who are intelligent, patriotic, concerned about the average American and ready to lead.

Mitt Romney is now seen as presidential and Paul Ryan, despite his youth is seen as someone who has the maturity and discipline  to be relied on to take over if necessary.

They also saw the true face of the Democrats in Joe Biden's sneering grimaces and laughter and Barack Obama's contemptuous and uninvolved demeanor.No media filter...this is whom they really are.

These instances of the mask being off were a wake up call to Americans who were still trying to figure out whom to vote for. It's sort of a national head shake, with people wondering 'is this really the sort of people who are in the White House and running the country?'

For all the whining about 'bi-partisanship' and ' compromise' by the left, people saw last night that's  the last thing the Democrats are interested in. They're not interested in even listening to what anyone else has to say,  another angry child mechanism. Think of  a young, self-involved child  with his fingers in his ears yelling 'la la la la, can't hear you' or throwing a tantrum when someone tries try to reason with him.

That was Joe Biden last night. And everyone except rabidly partisan Democrats noticed. Women in particular found Joe Biden obnoxious beyond belief, and with Romney-Ryan  already equal to Obama-Biden in that demographic,expect Biden's performance to have an effect in November.

Worse yet, even Democrats who were embarrassed by Biden's antics last night refused to distance themselves from them, so the odor is going to cling to them as well. Virtually the only member of the Democrat left  I saw who did so was Joe Trippi on FOX last night, because he alone was willing to look at how what happened last night, realize how damaging it was and attempt to staunch the blood flow.

Many Democrats who were cheering Biden on last night want Barack Obama to emulate him in the debate against Mitt Romney at Hofstra next  week. He may very well try, but he's unlikely to be able to do so to the extent his supporters would like. President Obama's likeability ratings and his image as presidential already suffered a huge blow last week in the debates, not to mention the current Libyan coverup, and the last thing he needs is to appear less presidential.

The leftist  base of the president’s party is filled with anger and hatred for Republicans, but as much as he probably wants to, President Obama is unlikely to be able to express enough rage and contempt to satisfy them, particularly in a townhall format.At which point, the same old complaints from the perpetually angry children on the left will be heard again.

President Obama may attempt to appear more animated and confrontational, and he may have CNN's Cathy Crowley helping him out. But Mitt Romney, a seasoned debater, is unlikely to let himself get rolled in that fashion, and another strong performance on Romney's part is going to reinforce the nation's impression that it's time for real hope and change.

Joe Biden has always been an infected boil on the body politic. This time, the infected boil has erupted where everyone could see it, and there's no cleaning it up or hiding it.

Paul Ryan Gets Tag Teamed And Still Wins

Tonight's debate was, well, a travesty. There's really no other word for it.

Joe Biden was not merely 'aggressive' but was downright disrespectful, rude and arrogant on an unprecedented scale. And what was worse, he was actively aided abetted by Martha Raddatz, the supposed moderator who abandoned any sense of impartiality. She allowed Biden to interrupt Paul Ryan 82 times during the debate, concentrated on Ryan when it came to follow ups and even interrupted Ryan herself a number of times. Once or twice, she even interrupted Ryan while he was attempting to respond after Biden interrupted him with a question. And literally every time Biden looked like he was out on a limb, she decided it was time to move on to another topic.Fortunately, Raddatz was so over the top that it was obvious to anyone who watched the debate.

As an example of how one sided the moderating was, Joe Biden ended up with eleven minutes more speaking time than Paul Ryan.

In other words, this was a tag team match. But Paul Ryan still triumphed in the end.

Aside from true believers like the MSNBC crowd, what people saw in Biden was a sleazy lunatic chuckling over important issues, a cranky, condescending old man mugging, yelling, sighing who seemed to resent Ryan being given a chance to speak. I'd call Biden a sphincter, but that would be wrong because sphincters serve a useful purpose.




 "They got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, turning Medicare into a piggy bank for Obamacare," says Ryan. And as Biden interrupts, Ryan says: "Mr. Vice President, I know you're under a lot of duress to make up for lost ground, but I think everyone will be better served if we don't keep interrupting each other."

Of course, tonight  wasn't about undecided voters. What Biden was there to do was to gin up the Democratic base, and he undoubtedly succeeded there. He followed the advice of the Chris Matthews character in a recent Saturday Night Live skit after the presidential debate whose angry line was: 'Interrupt, yell and talk over people. That's how you win debates.'

Except it didn't work, except for the MSNBC crowd.A CNBC website poll, had Ryan winning 56/36.In CNN's viewer poll, Ryan won 48% to 44%.The AP had it as Ryan 51%-43%, while CBS had Biden winning 50%-31%.  Undoubtedly, there will be more polls form the usual suspects showing Biden 'winning' handily. But more importantly, Ryan had 53%-43% advantage on being more likable in the CNN poll, and the results in most other polls were similar on this subject. Joe Biden's disgraceful conduct cost him a substantial part of his likeability ratings tonight. You don't win independents and undecideds with that kind of blatant misconduct.

What people saw in Paul Ryan was a self-possessed young man armed with facts who kept his cool, and managed to get in some major shots at Biden in spite of the way the game was fixed.

Undecided voters saw one man who appeared able to lead in the event he had to, and another man for whom sat there giggling and mugging when important issues were being discussed, and  the thought that he's just a heartbeat away from the presidency had to be downright scary.

Biden's top whoppers tonight? The Washington Post fact checked the debate and found that  Biden lied quite a bit and that  Ryan's "misstatements,"  are mostly debatable and open to interpretation. The ones I caught? Oh, I could go on for pages, but here's  a few that absolutely shocked me in their rank dishonesty and stupidity.

First Biden claimed that he never voted for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.In fact, he voted in favor of both.

Second, even more importantly, he dismissed Iran as a threat because 'they don't have a weapon' to deliver  a nuclear bomb. In fact, it's the other way around. They have had the means to deliver a nuke for some time, including a satellite  but don't have the bomb yet. The vice president apparently never heard of Iran's Shehab and BM25 missiles which are capable of hitting targets anywhere in the Middle East as well as most of Europe, and there's ample evidence that the Russians have supplied them with even more sophisticated toys lately.

And then there's Libya, where the vice president claimed that the administration wasn't aware of requests for more security in Libya before the Sept. 11 attacks, thus contradicting two State Department officials and the former head of diplomatic security in Libya who just testified before congress to that effect.

Finally, there was Vice President Biden's chest thumping on ending the Iraq war.

That result was only possible because of General Petraeus' surge strategy,and Senators Biden , tr Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the majority of the Democrats then in congress tried to sabotage General Petraeus and the surge  it every chance they got. 

President Obama  inherited more than  just an economic downturn from the previous administration, and the fact that Joe Biden would boast about accomplishing something that was done under President Bush's watch that he and the current president did everything they could to derail is unmitigated gall of the first order that would shame men with a shred of  decent character.

Joe Biden is going to get a lot of attaboys from partisan  Democrats, but  he failed to win over the voters who are taking a serious look at Romney at a point when he is rising in the polls.Even worse, after tonight's debate, Paul Ryan, who was able to state his case concisely and reasonably is no longer the caricature who's going to push granny over the

The millions of dollars the Democrats spent to create that sordid fiction are now just so much wasted effort except among the True Believers.

In that sense,Paul Ryan did pretty well tonight.

What To Expect InTonights Debate

Tonight, Republican VP candidate Paul Ryan goes up against incumbent VP Joe Biden in a debate that the Democrats are hoping will arrest President Obama's downward spiral. Here's what you can expect.

The moderator, ABC's Martha Raddatz will have been leaned on aggressively by both her peers in the media and her personal connections within the Obama Administration to 'moderate' aggressively in favor of Joe Biden by challenging Ryan and inserting Democrat talking points in an attempt to knock him off his game.She has the example of the beat down Jim Lehrer suffered by his leftist peers after the first Obama-Romney debate as an additional incentive. It remains to be seen whether she has decided to cave in to this pressure, but it's not unlikely.

In fairness, the fact that conservative pundits have raised the question my serve to have Ms. Raddatz over-correct in an effort to be fair in order to preserve her reputation as an independent journalist. In which case, raising the question of her possible bias was exactly the right thing to do.

The Obama Media will be looking at everything Ryan says with a microscope in an attempt to find anything at all that can be spun as a gaffe or error. They badly want this to be a Democrat win or at least a tie to help President Obama, and will call it as such unless Biden gives them nothing to work with and the results are obvious. Biden, on the other hand, will pretty much get a pass on whatever comes out of his mouth with an indulgent 'oh, that's just Joe' unless he commits a gaffe of serious proportions.

Biden will be aggressive right out of the box, attempting to interrupt Ryan and take control of the evening.Ryan's challenge will be to resist these attempts while maintaining his affability, using his own skills to take control and keeping his temper. Given what he's had to deal with in congress, that shouldn't be a problem.

Expect Biden to play elder statesman when the debate moves to foreign policy. Ryan's challenge here will be to demonstrate his knowledge in the area, steer the debate to recent fiascoes like Libya and remind the audience politely that this 'elder statesman' has been proven wrong on almost every major foreign policy question that's come before him since he's been in the Senate.

There's no question in my mind that Ryan can run rings around Biden when it comes to things like health care, taxes and domestic policy. Biden's tactic will be to try to come up with some folksy nonsense to demonstrate how he 'cares'. The vice president has been carefully briefed with talking points, but he lacks the deep understanding of the numbers and how they work on these issues. Ryan has them tattooed on the right side of his brain, and frankly, the Obama Administration's record shows just how badly they've performed in this area. If Paul Ryan can focus on that record, and if he can provide answers on how to fix it that the average American in his living room can understand, he will have won no matter how the pundits try to spin it.

As a bonus, when he's pressed or flustered, Joe Biden has a history in coming up with major gaffes, liker the one he committed against Sarah Palin when he claimed the U.S had 'run Hezbollah out of Lebanon.' If Paul Ryan hears one of these, he needs to underline it.

Biden has been around for forty years and participated in a number of public debates on the national stage. This will be Ryan's virgin outing, and a major challenge.He needs to convince America that if anything were to happen to Mitt Romney, he could take over the reins.

I have the feeling he's up to it, and if I'm right we may just witness the rise of a new GOP star tonight.

Dem's Hope's Riding On ...Joe Biden?

I kid you not. The Democrats are counting on VP Joe Biden to reverse their slide after President Obama disastrous shellacking by Mitt Romney:

Now, with his debate against Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan coming up on Thursday, Biden is under pressure to help President Barack Obama's campaign recapture the momentum it enjoyed before Obama was outmaneuvered by Republican rival Mitt Romney last week in the first of their three debates.

That debate trimmed Obama's lead in the polls and raised the stakes for the lone vice presidential debate, which also will be a national debut of sorts for Ryan, the Wisconsin congressman and budget specialist.

To quote the man himself, this is a big ****in' deal, and he's taking six days off to prep for it.

Biden will be hanging out with David Axelrod and other campaign advisers to get ready for the big night, Thursday, October 11th at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen is playing GOP VP candidate Paul Ryan in rehearsals.

The word is that Biden has an advantage because he's participated in debates on national TV before, while Ryan hasn't. Of course, that didn't stop Sarah Palin from making him look foolish last year, and she didn't have any national debate experience either.

But Paul Ryan isn't Sarah Palin and vice versa, so his lack of experience will definitely be a factor.

On the other hand, Ryan is scary smart, and as he showed last year with President Obama, like Mitt Romney he has a way of schooling the clueless without being obnoxious about it:



Biden, on the other hand, has a history of making ridiculous assertions that blow up in his face when challenged, and he's just likely to say something that can be looped in a political ad for our endless amusement.

I'm still disappointed Sarah Palin didn't jump on his assertion that America had 'kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon' during the last debate, which would have been must-see TV:

'Gee, Joe, when did that happen? When did we kick Hezbollah out of Lebanon? Can you give us a date, you being the foreign policy expert and all? Last time I looked, they were running the country.'

The debate might not get into foreign policy issues, which would be a plus for Biden. He's been dead wrong on almost every foreign policy question that's surfaced during his tenure in the Senate, including opposing the first Gulf War.

No, Biden will undoubtedly stick to talking points and the tired beating of the class warfasre drum.

Nevertheless, without wanting to raise people's expectations too much, I think Paul Ryan will do just fine in a face off with Joe Biden.

The very fact that Barack Obama picked someone like Joe Biden to be VP says a great deal about him, and I'm hoping voters come away with that same conclusion.

TV Ratings For The GOP Convention - Or, Decisions Have Consequences

One of the stories about the Republican convention that's under the wire is the significant drop in its TV audience.

Part of that might have been because more people (like yours truly) watched it via live streaming, or because of the alphabet network's insipid and reduced coverage.

But part of it might have been due to a much more obvious reason.

The resurrection of the GOP in 2010 was largely engineered by two people - Sarah Palin and Senator Jim DeMint. And they did it without much help, if any, from the GOP establishment. That's particularly true in Governor Palin's case. The money she raised through Sarah PAC, the endorsements she made and the speeches she made as she toured the country energized the GOP base and got them out to the polls.In the end, her batting average on her endorsements getting elected to office was over .750, an incredible number in baseball or in politics.

Her reward for her efforts was to be excised as a speaker from this year's GOP convention.

On day two of the convention, Paul Ryan's excellent speech was seen by 20 million people. In 2008, when Sarah Palin made her acceptance speech, she drew a whopping 37 million.

Love her or hate her, Governor Palin delivers outstanding speeches and has a huge and devoted following..which is exactly why Roger Ailes snapped her up for FOX.

Want to bet that if Governor Palin had spoken to the convention in Tampa, the ratings would have been off the charts? That it would have energized and revved up the entire convention?

The GOP establishment was likely afraid that Governor Palin would overshadow some of the politicos scheduled to speak, and that her speaking at the convention might have been too 'controversial.'

That decision was not only cowardly and ungrateful, but it was strategically a mistake. Paul Ryan's speech needed and deserved to be heard by a larger audience, and Sarah Palin would have delivered that.

Did Paul Ryan Lie? Nope, But The Obama Media Sure Did

Paul Ryan gave an electrifying speech at the Republican National Convention last night. Unlike most of the other speeches, this one took some time to actually hit President Obama on his abysmal record, although it was done humorously, with a rapier rather than a baseball bat.



Ryan made reference in the speech to yet another broken promise of President Obama's this one during the 2008 campaign when he was fishing for votes:

President Barack Obama came to office during an economic crisis, as he has reminded us a time or two. Those were very tough days, and any fair measure of his record has to take that into account. My home state voted for President Obama. When he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it, especially in Janesville, where we were about to lose a major factory.

A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: “I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.” That’s what he said in 2008.

Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight.

The Obama media went absolutely bonkers over this with their self appointed 'fact checkers'. The more egregious offenders were the Washington Post and The Associated Press, but there were plenty of other, especially when it came to the usual suspects at MSNBC and the Soros Media lackeys.

What did Ryan supposedly lie about? Well, the plant closed down during the Bush Administration, in December 2008, before President Obama was even inaugurated. And Obama never promised he'd keep it open.

Except for one inconvenient fact - Paul Ryan was right on both counts.

In 2008, the Janesville GM plant received notice it might be facing closure...but not until the end of 2009. And in fact, that's exactly when it did cease production..in December of 2009, during the first year of President Barack Obama's term and well after the GM bailout in June of 2009.



It gets better. Apparently the Obama Administration could have chosen to keep the Janesville plant open, but chose not to, opting to keep the plant in Springhill Tennessee operating instead.

So , to sum up, the Janesville plant closed while Barack Obama was president, and it could have been kept open.

I guess being a fact checker in the Obama Media simply involves repeating the White House's talking points, not actually, you know, fact checking.

Next, let's visit the other claim the Obama media is claiming was bogus, whether Candidate Obama made promises he didn't keep. My, wouldn't that be a shocker!

Candidate Obama made the speech Ryan was talking about in Janesville on February 13th, 2008 to a bunch of frightened auto workers and their families who were already on notice as of February 2008 that the plant was likely slated for closure at the end of 2009. Here's exactly what Obama said:

But through hard times and good, great challenge and great change, the promise of Janesville has been the promise of America – that our prosperity can and must be the tide that lifts every boat; that we rise or fall as one nation; that our economy is strongest when our middle-class grows and opportunity is spread as widely as possible. And when it’s not – when opportunity is uneven or unequal – it is our responsibility to restore balance, and fairness, and keep that promise alive for the next generation. That is the responsibility we face right now, and that is the responsibility I intend to meet as President of the United States. …

Those are the steps we can take to ease the cost crisis facing working families. But we still need to make sure that families are working. We need to maintain our competitive edge in a global by ensuring that plants like this one stay open for another hundred years, and shuttered factories re-open as new industries that promise new jobs. And we need to put more Americans to work doing jobs that need to be done right here in America.

Not only that, but in October, when the polls looked close, Candidate Obama doubled down:

“As president, I will lead an effort to retool plants like the GM facility in Janesville so we can build the fuel-efficient cars of tomorrow and create good-paying jobs in Wisconsin and all across America.”

He wanted their votes, so he told them what they wanted to hear and they bought into it. Except when President Obama put the taxpayers on the hook for $25 billion taxpayer dollars that will never be recouped in order to gift GM to the unions who spent over $40 million to get him into office, the Janeville plant was...overlooked.

That was likely because it made SUVs and trucks, vehicles the Obama Administration absolutely hates as being 'insufficiently green'.

So Paul Ryan, as usual, knew exactly what he was talking about.

As for the Obama Media, I no longer wonder how they live with the climate of partisan dishonesty they've chosen to create and dwell in.

Mortgages and car payments have to be paid, jobs are scarce, and having worked for the WaPo, the New York Times or one of the alphabet networks looks good on a resume and helps ensure further employment. And editors have certain expectations of the Help if you want to keep working, as 'fact checker' Glenn Kessler at the WaPo found out.

Most of these people would probably list their profession as 'journalist' if asked. That conceit is laughable. They're merely campaign operatives working in a specialized field for the Democrat party.

And sometimes, late at night, I wonder if it bothers them, deep down. The gutting of a free, independent press in this fashion is not without consequences in a republic.

Paul Ryan In Florida Talking Medicare To Seniors

No teleprompter, you notice. Just him, talking from the heart to seniors.

You want to have that debate on Medicare, Mr. President? Bring it on.

Paul Ryan - A Blast From The Past In A Younger Package

It's quite illuminating to see how the left is reacting to Paul Ryan.And it brings back some memories.

Look at these headlines:

How Obama Will Cash In on Paul Ryan: Medicare, Taxes, Education & More - by Bob Shrum, no less, who claims that when the left is finished with Paul Ryan, even his own children will boo him.

The next frontier in the case against Paul Ryan - From Greg Sargent, George Soros' man at the Washington Post.

When Cruelty is Cute - Ah, how could you leave out the incoherent ramblings of Pravda-on-the Hudson's Maureen Dowd!

Paul Ryan: Poster Boy Of Todays' Extreme GOP - Huffington Post, of course...

Ryan Is Cruel, Not Courageous - by the ever reliable Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of the far left Nation, writing in the Washington Post

There's plenty more I could cite, but for the most part, it's pretty much the same bolshoi. Ryan is evil. He's cruel, hiding his evil behind that attractive exterior. He's an extremist. He hates poor people, he wants to end the social safety net, he's Ryan the slasher, he wants to take away grandpa and grandma's medical care and social security and have them eating cat food. And not very good catfood at that. But Barack Obama, Warrior for the Middle Class is there to save the day!

None of it has the least shred of truth, but it's the narrative that matters, and it will be repeated ad nauseum in an effort to hide the truth and replace it. Given Barack Obama's record, it's really the only way he can possibly win. Not on ideas or issues, but, as Mitt Romney said earlier, on anger, division and hate.

All this reminds me of exactly the sort of rhetoric, bogus polls and overheated insanity directed at someone else...this guy, remember?




Even the name calling and the wordage could be taken from 1980. All you have to do is take out the references to 'a grade B, failed actor' and replace the -eagan with -yan. And oh yes, you'd have to switch out 'President Carter' for 'President Obama'. trust me, that's a no brainer.

Ryan, of course has differences with Ronaldus Maximus. He lacks his Hollywood polish and charisma, but he makes up for it with a charming regular guy demeanor that appeals to people after almost four years of being lied to and condescended to:



And he shares two things with President Reagan that are of the utmost importance; his renowned affability and his self-knowledge of whom he is, where he came from and where he wants to go.To put it more simply, like President Reagan, he's comfortable in his own skin.

That comes not only from self-knowledge, but from self-honesty, qualities not much in evidence in the current occupant of the White House.

One of my favorite maxims of Ronaldus Maximus is his saying that there's no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't mind who gets the credit. That's something I could see Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney signing on to, since it's essentially how they've lived their lives.

Barack Obama, not at all. Everything good that occurs must be about him, qnd everything bad someone else's fault.

It's no accident, I think that the rhetoric of the Left is so redolent of 1980, since we face a similar, dire situation at the hands of another abysmally incompetent president.

By that, I don't mean to suggest that this year's election is like 1980's. The country has changed.

But the issues we face are quite similar, if even more pressing.

In this election,as in 1980, there is a choice to be made between two very different visions for our country. As the American people ask themselves if they are better off then they were four years ago, and whether character in those who hold public office still means anything, they will make that choice.

-selah-

The 'Ending Medicare' Myth And How It Turns The Issue In Favor Of The GOP

A number of prominent ex-Journolistas and reliably left leaning media lackeys are working overtime repeating one line over and over to try to aid the Obama Campaign...that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are going to end Medicare and leave seniors without coverage. The exact opposite is true, as I'll demonstrate, but even more important is how this is going to turn over on the Obama Campaign. It's a hanging curve ball just waiting to be hit out of the park.

First of all, let's start with a simple truth. Medicare is going broke, and if nothing is done, the program will be bankrupt in around a decade.

The Obama Administration has accelerated this process by stealing around $716 billion from the program in order to fund a new entitlement, Obama Care. And contrary to what they're telling you, these are not 'administrative costs' but actual reductions in service. ObamaCare is set to destroy Medicare Advantage, a program 12 million seniors use. It is already causing the rationing of cancer drugs and a de facto rationing of care that is going to get a lot worse as the Independent Advisory Medical Boards (IAMBs), 15 unelected government officials, exercise the death panel style function they were designed for in ObamaCare and cut the payments to doctors and hospitals to the bone so that fewer and fewer of them can afford to accept Medicare patients. It is major rationing for seniors and ultimately the death of a thousand cuts for Medicare as a whole.

It is ObamaCare that was specifically designed to destroy Medicare, and to herd seniors into a one size fits all plan where care to them can be rationed with impunity. And even Dr. Donald Berwick, President Obama's personal choice to run Medicare and Medicaid admitted it's one of ObamaCare's ultimate aims...as did Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the president's chief healthcare advisers.

And unlike the final Medicare reform plan submitted by Paul Ryan, and the one outlined by Mitt Romney, these cuts directly affect current retirees.

Now you know who really wants to push grandma over the cliff.


By contrast, the plans advocated by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan save Medicare.

No one over 55 is affected, and people younger than 55 have the option of traditional 1965-style Medicare if they want to...or premium support from government to pay for competing private insurance plans.

If you choose, you can swap today's “defined benefit” Medicare system where the government decides on the price they'll pay for medical services for a “defined contribution” system, where the government decides on an amount of money - "premium support" - to provide to individual consumers and then lets them choose from an approved set of competing private insurance plans. And there's an open enrollment period each year allowing people to change their minds if they feel like it.

Not only that, but with this kind of system, there will almost certainly be supplemental plans marketed to those seniors who wish to purchase them along with traditional Medicare.

Now, there's a concept - giving people the right to choose among insurers seeking Medicare customers for the services seniors feel are most appropriate for their needs, and allowing the competition of the private sector to increase efficiency and drive down costs.

Ah, but what happens if the "premium support"  provided to seniors to buy coverage wasn't enough,,.or if the amount's annual growth doesn't not keep up with the growth of health-care costs?

Wait, it gets better. Walk with me a moment.

First of all, seniors could always choose to opt for the traditional 1965-style Medicare, since the government would still contain a package of required benefits that would constitute comprehensive insurance coverage,  just as Medicare does today.

But each year  the plan calls for private insurers as well as Medicare to  submit competitive bids to the government to provide coverage at the lowest cost they could sustain profitably. The government would then provide seniors in each region of the country with a "premium support"equal to the second-lowest bid in that region or one equal to the bid of the federal fee-for-service Medicare program, whichever was lower.

That way, seniors would be guaranteed to have a choice - there's that word again- of at least one comprehensive coverage option that equals the premium support payment offered and that would  involve the same level of out-of-pocket costs Medicare does today.

Of course, none of this touches on the huge savings in health care costs that need to be addressed on Medicare fraud ( a $8 to $9 billion 'industry') or tort reform.We'll call that dessert, to be enjoyed later.

Even nicer is the corner the Democrats have painted themselves into politically.

Ever since 1965, the Democrats have been able to use the Medicare hammer to bash Republicans, using the same old 'throwing granny off the cliff' argument. Certainly it's been used in every campaign since Carter versus Reagan.

Even intelligent leftists still don't realize what Obamacare has done to them. They might realize that ObamaCare cost them the 2010 midterms and that the hugely unpopular legislation is a rallying cry in this one. But they don't seem to realize yet that Medicare isn't their issue any longer.

The Democrats can lie, dissemble and rant, but they can't change a basic truth. They can either defend ObamaCare, which was designed to destroy Medicare, or they can disavow ObamaCare.They can't do both.

Here's how that looks. Watch Rachel Maddow  unable to answer when Rich Lowrey simply asks her if she supports $700 billion in cuts from Medicare:



It's President Obama who has put Democrats in the position of being the party that is cutting current seniors’ benefits, rationing care (thanks to the IAMBs)and letting the program collapse as it becomes unsustainable.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have positioned the GOP to be the party that wants to protect seniors’ benefits and make them available for future generations.

If you're a senior, the Democrats are offering you nothing except a grim, mean, rationed future when it comes to medical care.

It's the Republicans that are offering a much better deal, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see this being hammered over and over.

Like I said, it's a hanging curve ball just begging to be hit out of the park.

Politico Goes Harry Reid: 'GOP Pros Fret Over Paul Ryan'

Some of the writers at over The Politico are working overtime to try push a narrativer about a 'radical' Paul Ryan. Here's a sample:

Away from the cameras, and with all the usual assurances that people aren’t being quoted by name, there is an unmistakable consensus among Republican operatives in Washington: Romney has taken a risk with Ryan that has only a modest chance of going right — and a huge chance of going horribly wrong.

It is not that the public professions of excitement about the Ryan selection are totally insincere. It is that many of the most optimistic Republican operatives will privately acknowledge that their views are being shaped more by fingers-crossed hope than by a hard-headed appraisal of what’s most likely to happen.

“I think it’s a very bold choice. And an exciting and interesting pick. It’s going to elevate the campaign into a debate over big ideas. It means Romney-Ryan can run on principles and provide some real direction and vision for the Republican Party. And probably lose. Maybe big,” said former President George W. Bush senior adviser Mark McKinnon.

“Whether or not they [the Romney campaign] want to say that they have their own plan on Day One, or whatever they’re doing, it doesn’t change the reality of them having to own the Ryan plan. How is that in the wheelhouse of creating jobs?” added a GOP consultant.

The most cutting criticism of Ryan, shared only by a handful of strategists, is that Ryan isn’t ready to be president — or doesn’t come across as ready. A youthful man who looks even younger than his 42 years, Ryan could end up labeled as Sarah Palin with a PowerPoint presentation, several operatives said.

“He just doesn’t seem like he can step into the job on Day One,” said the strategist, who professed himself a Ryan fan.

And that’s just what it does to the Romney-Ryan ticket. Forget how it plays in close House and Senate races.

“Very not helpful down ballot — very,” said one top Republican consultant.

“This is the day the music died,” one Republican operative involved in 2012 races said after the rollout. The operative said that every House candidate now is racing to get ahead of this issue.

There's more, but you get the drift.

'One Republican operative', 'Republican operatives''Republican strategists'..and just to try and add weight to this empty plastic bag, they find one who's willing to be quoted..Mark McKinnon, one of the 'geniuses' behind the McCain campaign who nows runs No Labels, an organization of RINO's and lefty Democrats supposedly dedicated to 'non-partisanship'. If there actually are any real 'Republican operatives' aside from Mckinnon attached tothis story, I guarantee you they're of the same ilk.

Apparently the writers have caught the Harry Reid disease. I suppose next week they'll come up with 'a Republican operative' who tells them Ryan hasn't paid taxes in ten years.

And Ryan's not ready to be president? After 7 terms in the House and chairmanship of of the House Budget Committee? To three writers who probably voted for Barack Obama? Odd how we didn't hear much about President Obama being 'not ready to be president' out of the press in 2008.

Most of the political experts and long time observers I cited previously think Ryan was an absolutely brilliant pick, and even the ones that felt he was a risky one didn't say anything about his 'not being ready to be president.' Like Joe Biden is?

Not only that,but I think the crowds both Ryan and Mitt Romney have been drawing lately and the increased enthusiasm in the base speak for themselves.

What Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are saying, in essence, is that the road we're on is unsustainable, and they're letting us know there's an alternative...that we don't have to continue along the bankrupt road of Obama-ism.

It's a debate that we need to have nationally, and the only reason the left ia screaming about side issues is because they know that both history and the facts aren't on their side.

It's why '60 Minutes' chose to edit out the part of the interview Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan did with them where Ryan told America his own mother was on Medicare, and the last thing he was going to do was destroy it.

They can only win through lies and distortions.

Paul Ryan On Israel

So..how's this fella Paul Ryan on our ally Israel?

Pretty good, actually.

From his official website:

America has no better friend in the Middle East than the nation of Israel. Not only is Israel the region’s only fully functioning democracy, with a government based on popular consent and the rule of law, but it is also a valuable ally against Islamic extremism and terrorism. Our shared democratic values and national interests are supported by maintaining a close friendship with Israel. Americans also have a strong interest in Israel achieving a lasting peace with its neighbors – including the Palestinians.

Reasonable people – including those who live in the Middle East – differ about how the conflict between Israel and Palestine can be resolved. However, I believe at least one thing is clear: we cannot advocate for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that jeopardizes Israel’s safety or legitimizes terrorism. Hamas, which is one of the two major Palestinian political factions, is an Islamist terrorist group whose charter calls for Israel’s destruction, refuses to recognize Israel’s existence, and calls Osama Bin Laden a “martyr.”

While I do not have a role in the diplomatic discussions over the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, America should not pressure Israel to agree to a peace deal that is unlikely to result in peace and security. Real peace will require Palestinians to recognize that Israel has a right to exist, even as it will require two states for the two peoples. Introduced by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on May 13, 2011, H. Res. 268 reaffirms the United States’ commitment to a negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through direct negotiations. I co-sponsored this legislation, and it passed the House on July 7, 2011 by a vote of 407-13. I was also a cosponsor of H.R. 4133, the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act, also introduced by Majority Leader Eric Cantor, which passed the House on May 9, 2012 by a vote of 411-2. H.R. 4133 states that it is United States policy to reaffirm the commitment to Israel’s security as a state, provide Israel with the military capabilities to defend itself, expand military and civilian cooperation, assist in a negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and encourage Israel’s neighbors to recognize its right to exist.

Ah, but there's more.

He's been the co-sponsor of no less than 5 pro-Israel bills and resolutions, and puts the issue "Israel" under the category "Homeland Security" on his Congressional website.

Ryan visited Israel in 2005 with a delegation of newly elected Republican congressman, organized by the American Israel Education Foundation...and he's been a consistently pro-Israel vote and voice in the House.

Not only that, but two sources tell me that they've heard Ryan being even more outspoken on the subject in private.

If the execrable Phillip Mondoweis refers to him as 'an AIPAC tool' you know he's been doing something right.

I'd say that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are pretty much on the same page when it comes to Israel, and their administration will be a welcome change....as in every other regard.

Joe Biden Invokes Paul Ryan's Dead Father To Attack Him

If this had been the other way around, it would be screaming headlines everywhere. But since it's the Obama Campaign stooping this low, of course it gets a pass:

"My dad used to have another saying..for real," Biden said laughing along with the crowd. "And, by the way, I've been saying this for 30 years. And I'm glad to see that Congressman Ryan likes his dad, too, and quotes his dad. I mean that sincerely. But my dad [had] a lot of wisdom. Every time someone tells you, say, 'Look, let me tell you what's important to me, what I value.' My dad would go, 'No, no. Don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I will tell you what you value.'

Congressman Ryan's father died when he was 15.

So here we have Slo-Joe calling Ryan a liar, and using Ryan's deceased father to attack Ryan's values. As if Biden's father actually ever mentioned the word 'budget' to him!

If I were running for office and Joe Biden talked about my dead father that way, I'd smile, say I found Joe Biden's remarks of interest, and then invite him to meet with me privately somewhere the day after the election to talk about it, just us guys, no secret service or anyone else.

I think you know what would occur at that meeting.

First Romney's dead father and now Paul Ryan's.And rust me, worse is coming as they get more desperate.

Are these the kind of indecent folks the American people actually want running the country? I hope not.

Romney And Ryan Hit Back At Obama's Claim They Want To Destroy Medicare On '60 Minutes'

Amid a very busy day, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan sat down with Bob Schieffer of CBs' '60 Minutes' to hit back at the Obama Administration's falsehood that they plan to destroy Medicare:

"There's only one president that I know of in history that robbed Medicare, $716 billion to pay for a new risky program of his own that we call Obamacare," Romney said.

"What Paul Ryan and I have talked about is saving Medicare, is providing people greater choice in Medicare, making sure it's there for current seniors. No changes, by the way, for current seniors, or those nearing retirement. But looking for young people down the road and saying, "We're going to give you a bigger choice." In America, the nature of this country has been giving people more freedom, more choices. That's how we make Medicare work down the road."

Ryan added, "My mom is a Medicare senior in Florida. Our point is we need to preserve their benefits, because government made promises to them that they've organized their retirements around. In order to make sure we can do that, you must reform it for those of us who are younger. And we think these reforms are good reforms. That have bipartisan origins. They started from the Clinton commission in the late '90s."

This is just a clip, so I'm not sure is they mentioned the Obama Administration's destroying Medicare Advantage, a program 12 million seniors depend on. Or the rationing of cancer drugs. Or the death panels - aka 'Independent Medical Advisory Boards' that will ration care to seniors...even Dr. Donald Berwick, President Obama's personal choice to run Medicare and Medicaid is an advocate of that and admits it's one of ObamaCare's aims...as did Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the president's chief healthcare advisors.

These points need to be stressed again and again. Romney/Ryan will work to save Medicare. President Obama wants to destroy it.

The New Normal: 10,000 + At Romney/Ryan Rallies In WI, NC

Huge Crowds turned out in the sweltering summer heat to listen to Mitt Romney and his new VP pick Paul Ryan in two events in North Carolina and Wisconsin.

The rally in Wisconsin took place at the Waukesha County Expo Center, and as you can see above, a huge crowd turned out to welcome Paul Ryan.

Ryan saluted three other Wisconsin Republicans who have achieved national prominence: Gov. Scott Walker, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson.

"We're just guys from Tosa, Kenosha, Oshkosh and Janesville," Ryan said "What we learned in this state, just a little while ago, is that we want to elect men and women who run for office and tell us who they really are, what they really believe, what they're really going to do, and when they get elected, they do that.

"That's what we do here in Wisconsin."

Ryan framed the fall campaign between the Republicans and President Barack Obama as a stark choice.

"Do we want that opportunity society, a safety net, a land of upward mobility, where people can make the most of their lives, where people can get ahead?" Ryan said. "Or, do we want to go down the path of debt, doubt and despair. Do we want to copy Europe? No."

Ryan said, "We want to have the kind of an election where we earn your support, where we win an election because you said, 'Go fix the mess in Washington.' So when we win the election, we go fix this mess in Washington."

Romney lauded his new running mate "as someone who is a leader . . . who has real character, who loves America," before quickly stepping up the rhetoric against Obama.

"If you follow the campaign of Barack Obama, he's going to do everything in his power to make this the lowest, meanest negative campaign in history. We're not going to let that happen," Romney said.

He declared: "Mr. President, take your campaign out of the gutter and let's talk about the real issues that America faces."

Feisty and animated, Romney appeared to draw new energy from his new running mate. He easily brushed aside a heckler near the stage, telling him, "You ought to find yourself a different place to be disruptive because here we believe in listening to people with dignity and respect."






The North Carolina event, held at High Point, North Carolina, actually had turnaway crowds.

So did an earlier event at the NASCAR Technical Institute in Mooresville.

And the candidates delivered the goods:

Romney pointed to the legislation Ryan authored on Medicare as proof that he was trying to fix the system, adding it had two Democrat co-sponsors.

“He found ways to bring people together,” Romney said in High Point. “Rather than attack people, he would rather light a candle and bring light to the situation.”

At both events, Ryan got the the crowd excited with introductory remarks. At the second stop, which was oppressively hot and at which people had waited for hours to see the Republican ticket, the majority of the crowd sat down after Ryan was finished introducing Romney and remained seated during the nominee’s remarks.

“American is an idea and the idea of America was very clear, our founders made it really explicit,” Ryan said. “Our rights come from nature and god and not government.”

Ryan also used his introduction to bolster Romney’s record, a resume that the GOP nominee has been criticized for not doing enough to capitalize on.

“This is a man who when his country needed him to save the U.S. Olympics, it was a moment when the Olympics were in doubt. It [was] bloated, it was wasteful, it was corrupted. Does that sound familiar by the way?” Ryan said. “His country asked him to move to Salt Lake, to turn it around and save the Olympics. He did and we’re so proud of that moment.”

I think the tribe has spoken.

The pair also found time to interview on '60 Minutes' on which I'll have more later.

Governor Romney and Rep.Ryan are going their separate ways, with Ryan headed to Iowa and the Midwest while Romney heads for Florida.

If they can keep up this level of energy through November, I think we're in for quite a horse race.

Ryan Roundup

A number of pundits are weighing in on the Paul Ryan pick. Let's look at some of the more interesting ones,and I'll give you my take on them.

Jay Cost, consistently one of the smartest guys in the room says quite simply, that ObamaCare make a Vice President Ryan possible :

While it's true Democrats will run a Mediscare campaign like they did in 1996, Romney and Ryan have three powerful rejoinders this time around:

1. Medicare is already broken. We either reform it or let it destroy our public finances.

2. Obamacare exacerbates the problems in the Medicare system, since it takes $700 billion from Medicare to fund the newly created entitlement. Even the chief actuary for the Medicare and Social Security systems, Richard Foster, concludes that Obamacare will likely yield cutbacks in services to senior citizens rendered by Medicare.

3. While the original Ryan roadmap retains these Medicare cuts (though it eliminates the Independent Payment Advisory Board and uses them all to reduce the deficit rather than create a new program), Romney has indicated disagreement with this. Expect the ultimate Romney-Ryan plan to restore all funding to Medicare, just like the more recent Ryan-Wyden plan, which is cosponsored by Oregon's liberal senator Ron Wyden.

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. {...}

The country needs real changes to restore American greatness. A vote for Obama-Biden is a vote for unsustainability. A vote for Romney-Ryan is a vote for change, and therefore hope that America's best days are ahead. Or, we might say, Team Romney is all about hope and change -- a campaign theme that is known to work rather well!


Cost has a point here...if the campaign develops it properly. If they put out clear, hard hitting ads that emphasize the a vote for Romney-Ryan is a vote to save Medicare, I think it's a winner with seniors.

Sean Trende, the senior political analyst for Rea lClear Politics sees it differently.In his own words, he sees the Ryan pick as ' overall a middling-to-poor choice.' But he qualifies it:

But it isn’t a middling pick in the sense that there are a bunch of mushy pros and cons. The pluses and minuses are pretty stark.

Here are some additional thoughts on this (trying to avoid that which has already been said 500 times by others). First, the “not a bad pick” thoughts:

1) This is about Romney picking a veep he’s comfortable with. Ezra Klein writes that this “is an admission of fear from the Romney campaign. You don’t make a risky pick like Paul Ryan if you think the fundamentals favor your candidate.”

This is an easy answer, and it might be correct -- only a handful of people know what is going on in Romney’s inner circle, and what their polling is showing. But I don’t think so. Ryan is a risky pick, but not a panicked pick.

Perhaps most obviously, there wasn’t much evidence that Romney needed to panic. Unlike 2008, the Republican base is pretty well ginned up to vote this time around -- almost all the polling finds GOP enthusiasm outstripping Democratic enthusiasm -- and it has consolidated around Romney. The tracking polls have been stable for three months, as have the swing state polls, as have most of the polls of likely voters.

Indeed, if you were really worried about the Obama campaign’s efforts to tar you as an out-of-touch plutocrat who wanted to destroy the middle class, Paul Ryan would probably be your last choice for veep. Instead, I actually think a candidate like Marco Rubio would have been more of a “Hail Mary” than Ryan: Let’s take a relatively untested candidate from a state that we’ll only lose if we’re losing anyway, to try to win over an unfriendly demographic.

The simplest answer is this: Campaign analysts always say that vice presidential picks don’t matter, and the truth is, they don’t. Even Sarah Palin was something of a wash in 2008, according to the exit polls. The advice given is usually “just pick someone you’re comfortable with.” I really starting thinking seriously about Ryan a few days ago when someone commented that the Wisconsin congressman was the type of guy Romney would have hired at Bain Capital: young, smart, and energetic. It probably isn’t any more complex than that.

In fact, it could just as easily be that Team Romney is convinced that they have an excellent chance of winning, and that Ryan gives them an argument for a mandate to get things done (see No. 3 below) if they win. I don’t see this as the most likely scenario, but I think it’s about as likely as the “panic/fear” scenario.

2) The most commonly discussed negatives here are probably already baked in. I think this is the most important thing for people who are scratching their heads and wondering why Romney would do this. Romney was going to run on the Ryan budget plan no matter what -- in fact, many on the left argue that the entire point of the anti-Bain campaign was to soften Romney up for the Ryan-plan campaign in the fall. In other words, there actually might not have been a downside here.

3) There is ample reason for Democrats to be worried here. Unlike 2008, when the cupboard was so bare that McCain was actively looking at Democrats, there was something of an embarrassment of riches on the Republican side this year. One imagines that the Romney team anticipated the exact downsides that Democrats are chortling about this morning, and for whatever reason, is convinced that they are overstated. There’s something in the focus groups that has them pretty well convinced they can win this election with Paul Ryan on the ticket.

As for the “not a good pick” thoughts:

1) This is probably a missed opportunity for the Romney campaign. There are really two things that a vice president can do: Move the needle a few points in a key state (LBJ in 1960, Lieberman in 2000) or reinforce a message (Gore ’92). With a choice like Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio or Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, Romney really could have made a difference in a swing state that could have put him over the top against Obama. Maybe Ryan will reinforce a positive message for Romney that allows him to win, but I’m still skeptical.

2) This probably improves Obama’s chances of winning. The Ryan plan doesn’t exactly have a great track record winning elections: It played a large role in the Republicans’ defeat in a special election in upstate New York in early 2011. Romney’s path to victory involves winning an outsized share of downscale white voters, and this plan presumably makes that task more difficult. Again, maybe the focus-group testing shows that opposition to the president is so strong among these voters that it just doesn’t matter, but I don’t think I’d bet the farm on this.

3) In fact, it opens up an Obama landslide scenario for the first time. I’ve always thought that Obama wouldn’t be able to win more than a two-to-three-point re-election victory, mainly because a president almost never wins the votes of people who disapprove of the job that he is doing, and Obama’s approval rating is unlikely to be much above 50 percent on Election Day. But, while I don’t think it’s guaranteed, this really does give Democrats an opportunity to make Romney so radioactive that people who don’t like the president nevertheless vote for him. If the white working class revolts at the prospect of the Ryan plan, Obama really could match, or even exceed, his 2008 showing.

4) These types of picks rarely end well. When we think back on the “bold” or “unexpected” picks in history, they rarely have good outcomes. Agnew in ’68, Eagleton in ’72, Ferraro in ’84, Quayle in ’88, Kemp in ’96, Palin in ’08 are all looked back on with disfavor. The “good” choices were almost always “safe” choices.

So while I say that something in the focus groups convinced Team Romney that it can win with Ryan, that doesn’t mean that Ryan is somehow bullet-proof. Far from it. Remember, something also convinced Walter Mondale that Geraldine Ferraro was the right choice.

As a final, overarching thought: Democrats should be careful what they wish for here. While I think it is tougher for Romney to win this election with Ryan on the ticket than without, the truth is that vice presidential picks rarely matter, and this race will always have the configuration of a referendum on the incumbent. Ronald Reagan didn’t exactly offer a mushy concoction of focus-group-tested platitudes, and yet he was still able to frame the election by asking people if they were better off than they were four years ago.

Democrats rubbed their hands gleefully at the prospect of facing Reagan in the general election, and the truth is that Reagan probably offered them more targets than, say, Gerald Ford would have. But the result was that the national conversation moved rightward for the following 30 years.

Trende makes an excellent point that the race is always going to be a referendum on the incumbent, no matter whom Romney had picked. The only two VP candidates Romney could have picked that might have been safer or help out electorally were Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell or Florida Senator Marco Rubio, but since only Romney's inner circle was privy to the vetting, we have no idea what their polling actually showed as far as Rubio or McDonnell carrying their home states, what other baggage they might have encountered, or even whether Rubio and McDonnell wanted the gig in the first place.

Another point that Trende alludes to but doesn't state directly is what I'll call the Reagan factor. Real conservatives who are articulate, state their ideas in terms ordinary Americans can understand and relate to voters on a gut level to almost always win elections.

Paul Ryan has that ability..right down to Ronaldo Maximus' famed affability when dealing with childish, hysterical lefties. He'll only get better as he gets more seasoned on the national stage.

Charles Krauthammer sees the same thing.

On the other hand, Trende is entirely right when he says that, based on what we know, Ryan was not a 'safe' pick. But then, I'm not sure that's what this election demands anyway. Ryan underlines the message of the Romney campaign and puts things in clearer terms, and, as I've mentioned, if Romney's challenge now is to give Americans a reason to vote for him rather than merely against Obama, this might have been exactly what was needed.

A.B. Stoddard over at the Hill sees it the same way:

In choosing Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his running mate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney not only surprised the political world late Friday night, but he has become a different candidate for president over night.

He is suddenly someone willing to take a risk, someone offering specifics instead of generalities, and someone willing to sell his own agenda to the voters instead of trying to bash his way into the Oval Office. And by embracing Ryan, and the controversial policy heft he brings to the ticket, Romney is now a serious candidate who has displayed true leadership — the willingness to do something politically dangerous because he believes it is the right thing to do.

Until now Romney was running a non-campaign on the hope that voters were simply ready, in such a troubled economy, to fire Obama. Polls this week showing Obama ahead in several battleground states and making headway with independent voters proved that strategy wasn't working.

Romney has muddled through the months since the primary, allowing Democrats and Team Obama to define him early as a "vulture capitalist" who won't release his tax returns, parks money overseas and couldn't have cared less about the companies Bain Capital loaded up with debt and sold while leaving workers without pension, healthcare or their homes. Romney's negatives have grown with each attack to historic numbers, the kind that don't get you elected.

Polls also show that the only undecided voters left — and there are not a lot of them — are the most disgusted with the campaign thus far and the least interested in voting. They know all they need to about Obama, and Romney now has less than three months to sell himself to them and tip the election his way with a running mate and message that provides a stark contrast to Obama and Vice President Biden.

Ryan is as appealing and convincing a messenger as Romney could find to campaign on the urgent need for austerity and fiscal rescue. Democrats are swooning at the prospect of attacking his Medicare overhaul once more, arguing his plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program will devastate the safety net for seniors.

But Ryan is articulate, affable, and spin-free, which is why despite his lightning-rod policies, he has been reelected handily in his swing district so many times. Ryan isn't interested in just attacking Obama's policies, though he certainly will do so in his effective, friendly fashion. He refuses to demagogue or dodge the debate.

"If you're going to criticize then you should propose," Ryan told The New Yorker a few weeks ago. "People like me who are reform-minded ignore the people who say, 'just criticize and don't do anything, and let's win by default.' That's ridiculous."


Nate Silver, over at the New York Times is another voice I like to look at when it comes to politics. He's a numbers guy, and he sees Ryan as dice toss made by a campaign that sees itself losing:

When is it rational to take a big risk?

When the status quo isn’t proceeding in a way that you feel is favorable. When you have less to lose. When you need — pardon the cliché, but it’s appropriate here — a “game change.”

When a prudent candidate like Mitt Romney picks someone like Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate, it suggests that he felt he held a losing position against President Obama. The theme that Mr. Romney’s campaign has emphasized for months and months — that the president has failed as an economic leader — may have persuaded 47 or 48 or 49 percent of voters to back him, he seems to have concluded. But not 50.1 percent of them, and not enough for Mr. Romney to secure 270 electoral votes.

That reading may be correct. National polls tell different stories about the state of the race — but most have Mr. Obama ahead. Polls of swing states have been a bit more consistent. In states like Ohio, Mr. Obama’s lead has been small — but it has been steady and stubborn.

The forecast model I developed for FiveThirtyEight, which accounts for state and national polls and the condition of the economy but not other factors, estimated as of Friday that Mr. Obama was about a 70 percent favorite to win re-election. Betting markets and bookmakers have been slightly more equivocal, but have also had Mr. Obama ahead, generally giving him between a 60 and a 65 percent chance of winning a second term.

Either prediction allows for plenty of winning scenarios for Mr. Romney. Even three months out, the economy is very difficult to forecast. With a growth rate of only 1.5 percent in the second quarter, a blowup in Europe, or in the Middle East, could send it back into recession.

Even without that, there are still some undecided voters left: not many, but a few. It is not the case, as a general rule, that undecided voters tend to break against the incumbent. (You can safely ignore someone on your television set who says the opposite: they haven’t done the research.) But it’s also not necessarily the case that the undecideds will split evenly. In some elections, one candidate (either the incumbent or the challenger) wins most of them. It could be Mr. Romney, especially since his campaign figures to have more money to spend on advertisements in the remaining months.

The ability to perform an honest self-assessment is rare for all of us. Mr. Romney, in making this outlook, may have been aided by his background in seeking to turn around distressed companies.

Why am I concluding that Mr. Romney would have chosen Mr. Ryan only if he felt he was losing? Because from a Politics 101 point of view, this isn’t the most natural choice.

Vice-presidential choices are inherently risky to a degree, but the risks are asymmetric, and weighted toward the downside: It’s far easier to name choices who undermined campaigns than those who helped them. The best way to mitigate that downside risk is to select someone who has been tested on a national stage before, ideally by having run for president themselves — or failing that, by having been elected multiple times from a large and diverse state.

Mr. Ryan is a national figure of some repute — before Saturday morning, his national name recognition was about 50 percent — but he has never been elected to anything larger than his Congressional district of about 700,000 people. Members of the House of Representatives have only occasionally been selected as running mates. The last one on a winning ticket was John Nance Garner, the speaker of the House, in 1932. The last time an ordinary member of the House was elected vice president, and the last Republican, was more than 100 years ago: in 1908, when William Howard Taft and James S. Sherman, a New York congressman, were chosen by voters. (Coincidentally, that fall was also the last time that the Chicago Cubs won the World Series.)

Politics 101 suggests that you play toward the center of the electorate. Although this rule has more frequently been violated when it comes to vice-presidential picks, there is evidence that presidential candidates who have more “extreme” ideologies (closer to the left wing or the right wing than the electoral center) underperform relative to the economic fundamentals.

Various statistical measures of Mr. Ryan peg him as being quite conservative. Based on his Congressional voting record, for instance, the statistical system DW-Nominate evaluates him as being roughly as conservative as Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. {...}

Taking risks like these is not what you do if you think you have a winning hand already. But Mr. Romney, the turnaround artist, decided that he needed to turn around his own campaign.

It’s going to take some time before we can reliably measure the impact of Mr. Romney’s choice. Vice-presidential picks sometimes produce “bounces” in the polls, especially when they are as newsworthy as this one, but they often fade after a few days or a few weeks. And the party conventions, which almost always produce polling bounces, are coming up soon.

Personally, I see the polls as showing a different story than Nate Silver does, with the president's approval rating well below 50% and 62% of Americans saying the country is on the wrong track. Especially when you discount joke polls like CNN's and others based on registered voters (only 63% of whom voted in 2008), with their huge oversampling of Democrats.

Gallup and Rasmussen, who base their polling on likely voters show President Obama's approval rating at 43% and 45%, respectively. Gallup shows the president and Mitt Romney tied, while Rasmussen actually shows Romney two points ahead.

I personally don't see this as a desperation move by a losing campaign so much as a way to energize the GOP base and define the Romney candidacy. But as Silver says, it's going to take some time to show how Ryan affects the campaign.

A Time For Choosing: First Thoughts On Paul Ryan

Governor Mitt Romney has chosen Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to be his running mate. Here's his acceptance speech:





Was it a good choice?

With one possible reservation, I think so.

There are those who call it a desperation pick from a position of weakness. I think nothing could be further than the truth, although time will tell.

In Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney has chosen someone who appeals to independents, Tea Party conservatives, most elements of the GOP as a whole, and yes, even to a number of Democrats. He's a seven term congressman in a decidedly Democrat district in Wisconsin whose lowest share of the vote was 57 percent, in his first election. He normally gets 60 per cent or more of the vote. President Obama carried Ryan’s district by four points in 2008..while in the same election, Paul Ryan won reelection with 65 percent of the vote, with one in five Obama voters also voting for him. He's popular in his home state, and could make the difference in carrying Wisconsin.

He's a decent stump speaker, and people react to his intelligence, his honesty and his essential decency quite naturally. He not only knows what he's talking about, he has the ability to communicate his ideas in a persuasive and appealing way. He's going to appeal to a lot of voters. As Chairman of the House Budget Committee, he's shown a readiness to tackle tough problems with innovative solutions. He's been a leader in Congress and one of a number of people who understands we're at a threshold moment in America, and that continuing to travel the path we've been traveling will lead to misery.Plus, he'll be a major asset in getting Romney's agenda through Congress.

My one reservation on Paul Ryan is how effective he's going to be in the normal role of campaign attack dog.

The Democrats will make much of the Ryan Budget with its proposed Medicare reforms and run the usual ads showing an actor pushing granny off the cliff. But they would have done that regardless, and in fact have already begun to try to scare seniors.

The accusation is ludicrous coming from people who gutted Medicare of half a trillion dollars to help pay for ObamaCare, a program that rations cancer drugs, includes 'independent medical advisory boards' to ration care to seniors and kills the Medicare Advantage program over 12 million seniors rely on.

It also ignores the fact that there will be no changes to anyone already in the program, and the fact that unless reforms are made, the entire program will collapse. Here's a great clip of Ryan schooling a clueless President Obama in these realities:



Don't be surprised if the Democrats don't agree to a vice presidential debate this time out.

Anyone Governor Romney picked was going to be subjected to the most intense attacks by the Obama campaign and their media lackeys to destroy them not only politically, but personally, and Ryan was no exception. But the speed with which the Soros media empire and the left leaped in to attempt to Palinize someone whom is essentially an honest, intelligent and principled public servant was not only disgusting but a clear example of how morally bankrupt they really are.

This election represents a choice, and having Paul Ryan on the ticket emphasizes it.It was a bold pick for Mitt Romney to make.

It is a choice between getting our house in order or becoming Greece, with all that implies. It is a choice between electing two competent and experienced public servants, or leaving the country in the hands of a failed ideology put into play by a corrupt Chicago-style gang of looters and wreckers.

It is a choice between, as Paul Ryan said, re-applying our Founder's principles or choosing four more years of the same..if the fiction even lasts that long.

It is a choice of two entirely different futures for America.