For months, Mitt Romney repeated a common complaint about President Obama's professional background: he's spent his life in the political world, not the real world. While Romney's a businessman (notwithstanding 18 years seeking public offices), Obama's never run a business and never run a state. It makes Obama, the argument goes, a poor choice for national office.
Oddly enough, Romney hasn't repeated that line of criticism in a while. I guess we know why.
[Paul Ryan] worked in politics his entire life, beginning as an aide to Sen. Bob Kasten, then working for Sen. Sam Brownback and as a speechwriter to Rep. Jack Kemp. He's known as a relatively ideological politician who has put forward a detailed policy plan to remake the federal government. It's a rather different message about what's important. And how does Romney say the problem with Barack Obama is that he's "never spent a day in the private sector" and then put Ryan a heartbeat away from the presidency?
Indeed, in May, Romney went so far as to say working in the private sector for "at least three years" should be a prerequisite to national office. Now, Romney wants to put Ryan one heartbeat from the presidency, despite the fact that Ryan's adult life bears all of the characteristics of a background Romney disdains.
I don't intend this as a "gotcha" moment, exactly, but rather, my larger point is I'm not exactly sure why Romney thinks Ryan should be the vice president, or would even be good at the job.
Everything we know about Romney -- he's a cautious, management-focused executive, who values experience and private-sector success -- suggests Ryan's the last guy he'd want as a governing partner in the White House. Putting aside the radicalism of the Ryan budget plan, at least for a moment, Ryan hasn't run so much as a lemonade stand.
He's a 42-year old, seven-term congressman who's never even held statewide office and has no natural constituency. Ryan voted for every element of the Bush-Cheney agenda -- including votes for the bank bailout, the massive Medicare Part D expansion that he didn't see the need to pay for, and multiple increases to the debt limit.
Ryan's also a very high-profile figure from the least popular Congress since the dawn of modern polling. He is, in other words, a professional politician who has played a key role in making Capitol Hill even more loathed than it's ever been. Ryan, like Romney, also has literally zero background in foreign policy, national security, or international affairs.
What is it about this resume that Romney looks at and says, "Yep, that's my kind of guy"?
The answer is, nothing. Romney was almost certainly pushed into this announcement by a conservative establishment that doesn't trust him or feel excited to rally behind him, and Romney didn't have the standing or intestinal fortitude to push back.
It's a Quayle/Palin kind of decision that reinforces the perception that Romney is not only unsatisfied with the state of the race, but is starting to feel genuine fear about his candidacy.
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Paraphrasing Grover Norquist statement at CPAC - that all they needed was someone with enough digits on their hand to sign the Ryan Budget, this certainly seems to be what they think they have in Romney.
It appears, with the Ryan pick, as if Norquist et al have Ryan himself to pull the strings on Romneys signing hand.
All Grover Norquist needs is a computer with opposable thumbs. Is that what we have here?
Paul Ryan is the vp choice, Obama is toast now, joy in the newsrooms across America!
I support President Obama 100%. What Noam Chomsky called the public relations industry is the real problem. We enjoy your show, Rachel!
Choosing Ryan Paul -- I wonder if this has something to do with tamping down Ron Paul's representatives at the GOP convention... and will this encourage Ron Paul supporters to stick with the party and vote for Romney? My 21 year old daughter says a number of her friends are Ron Paul supporters. Is this also an effort to reach out for the younger vote?
wow just had to say Romney Ryan how could any one vote for this combo of wrong?
Romney’s pickof Paul Ryan as his running mate shows what bad judgment both have. Ryan says that his ideological guiding star is Ayn Rand. Let’s start by stating
clearly what Rand’s history and position are.
Ayn Rand comes from a family of “white Russians” who were a part of the ruling oligarchy in Czarist Russia. They lived a life of power, wealth, and privilege. After the Bolshevik Revolution, Rand and her family lost almost everything and had to flee Russia to survive.
As a consequence of that experience, Rand became extremely embittered and developed an extremely individualistic philosophy which she espoused in her
writings. I read all of the writings in the mid 1960s and found them interesting, but sensed that something was amiss. After searching analysis I found that what Rand was saying is the greed is good, that anyone who could amass wealth by any means should be able to do so without any controls or regulation, and keep it all. She was so embittered by the Bolshevik’s actions and her family’s losses that she came to absolutely hate not only the Bolsheviks, but also any form of government – including a
democratic one, Government was simply an obstacle to and amassing of personal
wealth and power.
Further, as a result of her bitterness, she also came to detest all forms of religion. God did not come to the aid of her family in their plight, so she denounced God’s existence. She felt that any sacrifice to help or aid others was absolutely wrong.
So, Paul Ryan’s guiding light is Ayn Rand. That means that he believes that greed is good and no one and no government should get in the way of amassing wealth by any means – moral or not – and that the person who amasses such wealth should keep it all.
It means that Paul Ryan simply does not believe in any form of government, especially not democracy. It means that he feels no obligation to anything to help the less fortunate. It means that his extreme political ideology trumps even his religion.
Does that sound like anyone you want anywhere near the seat of power in this
country. HELL NO !!.
Rayn's first day out, he's more energetic than Mitt, makes Mitt look a bit lost, playing second string QB instead of a starter, very obvious in the context live just now on TV. They will need to pull joint appearances soon, stick to solos.
Rayn also chanted, ad nauseum, fallacies, several, one after another.
Good for the base? David Gregory was already licking his lips for the guy fest, looks like he wants to hump his leg.
Chuck Todd, not so much, sees the pick as a strategic miss.
Running ops research, first commercial out of the gate would be Raynd's statement that under Obama, the country's debt was downgraded, a DIRECT result of Cantor and Raynd's intransigence, sorry his exuberance will cave in on him because he's too used to spewing trail biscuit sound bites, scrutiny and negs are up from six months ago on him.
Too little too late, and for chrissake', keep him from being on the same stage at Mitt, he is making Willard just look bad, and the hate scowl on Trapper, Tripp, Tapas, whatever Mitt's son is named, keep that guy off the TV as well. Looks bad even in $500 dress down causal bad-ass CEO does the weekend costume.
Tagg, you are not it...
Creepy. Very creepy. The wanna be VP has a widows peak. Look it up in Wikipedia. Usually in fiction bad guys like Dracula or some of Batman's bad guys have them. Then there is the death connotation. Does the guy have a 666 birthmark by any chance. Watch this video if you still think you want to vote this in control of your country.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLWnB9FGmWE&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Paul Ryan with his ideological thoughts must live in a fantasy world, where he thinks if people just live to fend for yourself that everything will be perfect than. Perhaps on this, we should call Ryan an idiot, since no one is perfect and to depend on a person’s human nature only would bring a total disaster. Of course, the rich probably would think it was great, but everybody else would be living in misery, despair and death. To actually think you can trust that people will treat you right is an illusion, because most certainly people will get screwed and be treated less than second class citizens. Romney and Ryan by their own discussions and actions have proven their corruption and own selfish interests. Look what these 2 men have done that is representative of the GOP/Republican Party, they didn’t do anything to really help people, except to use people to help themselves only. Romney and Ryan only got one idea in mind keep doing for me and forget about anybody else. If you are not rich, you are nothing and not worthy enough to make any choices that pertain to yourself. Romney and Ryan fit a severe dictator class of making everybody else just serve their needs. There is 2 types of politicians, the first who goes into politics to become wealthy and only serve their selfish interests and the second goes into politics to actually help all people. Which do you think these Republicans, extremists of hatred, Romney and Ryan serve?
I think the pick was partly made to help draw the left away from mentioning Mitt's tax returns, and so far it has worked. Haven't heard any mention of Mitt's tax returns on MSNBC since.
Romney and Ryan act like they have sacrificed and did such good things for people. And Romney and Ryan haven’t even come close to what sacrifice and caring is. Sacrifice and caring is actually doing something that you know has really helped people such as saving people’s lives without the concern of your own safety or caring that someone isn’t going to be harmed by something terrible. Everything that Romney and Ryan have done is to be destructive to others, unless it was something that they could put up a deception that they were something good or it lined their pockets with huge amounts of money. The addition of Ryan as the VP is just another disgusting example of deceit and lies to come. This whole secrecy of picking Ryan also shows how it will be if they get into the white house as the people will know nothing of what is going on and the very lack of any truth. Of course, it will be all for the bad for the average person, except for the extreme wealthy. First thing, Romney will be creating is his secret rooms on everything and the lack of any reporting to the news of any truth, except lies.
Want to hear something really disguising! We Americans have a candidate for president of the United States, namely Willard Mitt Romney, who got his start in the business world with money from those that were in some way connected to terrorist and has helped those terrorist make money over the years so that they could continue on with their terrorism! That is totally DISGUISING! When Romney first started Bain Capital he had a hard time finding investors. He was told that he might have better luck finding investors overseas. So he search around and came upon a group of people from El Salvador that were looking for ways to make money with their income. Now at that time in El Salvador there was a revolution going on between the rich land owners and the peasant population for control of the farming lands of El Salvador. This was not just a protest revolution. This was a killing revolution. The land owners hires a secret killing force who were killing many protesters in order to put fear into the protesters. This was a known fact to the world and to Romney. However Romney still decided to team up with some of the very rich farm land owners to take their money and make investments in Bain Capital so that he could make these rich land owners richer which in turn gave the rich owners more money to hire more terrorist and buy more weapons for them so that they can kill more peasants. Romney knew that family members of the investors were involved in the terrorist acts of killing. Those associated with the investors would brag about about the terrorist attacks while they were in Miami where they lived or were there to have meetings with Romney and Bain. Yet Romney continued to do business with these rich land owners and did so even after the terrorist killed a Bishop who was trying to speak up for the peasants. Romney and Bain helped finance the killings of El Salvadorians. This is the kind of guy you people want to elect as your President of the United States. To read more about this story read the Huffington Post issue of 8/8/2012. I hope more media outlets look into this story some more because this is disgusting that Romney did this.
President Obama has pulled America out of a Republican caused Depression. Without a doubt President Obama’s policies have made America better off than it was four years ago. Us Americans were in a Depression when President Obama took office and it surely will take time to get back to normal because in that Republican caused Depression 9 million people lost their jobs. That is a lot of workers who are a lot of consumers losing their jobs. The economy grows when somebody buys something which gives someone a chance to sell something which gives someone a chance to have a job making something for someone to sell. A worker is a consumer because they have the opportunity to buy something. Since 2010 when the Republicans took over the House of Representatives the Republicans have shut down the amount of workers that the government has by not financing any public sector job creation which caused a slowdown in our economic recovery. Then Republicans in the private sector helped to slow down our economy too. Most of the companies in America are owned by the rich. Most of the rich are Republicans. Most of the large companies are making profits. Yet most large companies are cutting their work force to the bone. Less workers means less consumers which means a weaker economy. The Republicans know that the ONLY issue that will make them win the next election is a weak economy so the republicans in the private and public sector are doing all that they can to slow up the economy so that they can win the election. Do you want to reward someone who has screwed up your life?! Vote for President Obama and the Democrats because they don’t screw up your life, they improve your life Read http://mybetteramericaplan.com to see many other reasons why Romney, Ryan and the Republicans are bad for America.
There is little doubt that the Republican's caused our depression, but in addition, the Republicans did it on purpose too. Cause a depression to make everybody more vulnerable to what the rich want and on top of it make the rich more wealthy at the cost of others.
Guys,
Most of us here are missing the point. Mittington is trying to tell us something, "You think I am a douche. Now look at this guy.....now, I am not looking so bad, am I?"
Take care,
Kausik
Ryan is the Washington Insider that all Tea Party types love to hate. He cut his teeth on DeLay's K Street graft and lobbying machine. He's the guy who is going to stop spending? He owes too many special interests too may favors. The man tells us he has principles and the shows us by this votes that he doesn't.
The only people he has ever said "no" to since he went to Congress are the sick, abused children, the disabled, and seniors. His budget does stay true to that tenet. And he thinks the middle class is fool enough to go along with giving the rich another tax cut to outsource their jobs....making us pay for it with a tax raise.
Ryan is as stupid as he is corrupt and cruel to those not able to fight back for themselves. Good thing Ryan is a Catholic and believes in purgatory or he would be going straight to where the Religious Right tells us only gays and liberated women go.
In the AP story "Ryan selection shrouded in secrecy" they noted that VP candidates were required to submit several years worth of tax returns. I find it ironic that they recognize the importance of tax data in their selection of a VP candidate but refuse to avail us of the same data for their Presidential candidate.
Makes you wonder how much room is in that roof rack...and who's driving the station wagon.
Paul Ryan resembles an adult version of Eddie Munster. Exccept Eddie Munster had more respect for his elders and more compassion for others.
It's a little risky given that Ryan has exactly one thing going for him, he's written a budget. Does that qualify him to be president? That's supposed to be important.
And who was that 5 year old they got to pester Rachel on MTP? What a waste of everyone's time. I bet Rachel wanted to swat him with a rolled up newspaper.
You can't have this as a gutsy pick (which everybody agrees it is, & which I, personally, think is stupid too since Ryan is an extremist) & still label Romney as cowardly, for getting pushed into this pick!
I LOVE That Paul Ryan preached about answering the "tough questions", yet quickly tows the line with only releasing 2 years tax returns. I presume that they will continue deflecting the call to give 10 years tax returns in line with previous runners.
If Rich Lowry is typical of conservatives with Lowry's rudeness of not letting others talk as a way of manipulating/bullying folk who have a different opinion or "tough questions" so as to avoid answering... then I will be waiting "probably a long time" for conservatives to grow up. Needless to say, Rich Lowry did nothing to encourage open minds to read the National Review. My 15 year old son can argue better than Lowry. :)