Within a few hours of Mitt Romney introducing Paul Ryan as his running mate, campaign officials were letting reporters know that the presidential hopeful won't fully embrace the congressman's budget plan as his own. Last night on "60 Minutes," Romney was a little more explicit on this point.
Bob Schieffer: There's no question your campaign has been trying to make this election a referendum on Barack Obama. Now, some people are saying you are making it a referendum on Paul Ryan's budget plan.
Mitt Romney: Well, I have my budget plan as you know that I've put out. And that's the budget plan that we're going to run on.
It's worth noting that Romney claiming to have "put out" his own "budget plan" isn't quite right. We've seen a vague, right-wing blueprint with numbers that don't make any sense, but incomplete outlines do not a budget plan make.
But the larger point here is that we're way past the point at which Romney can credibly distance himself from Paul Ryan's radical congressional budget plan. The former governor has endorsed the Ryan agenda several times, and just yesterday, Ed Gillespie, a top Romney campaign advisor, told a national television audience, "[I]f the Ryan budget had come to his desk as a budget, [Romney] would have signed it, of course."
Of course.
Look, this is silly (and not just because presidents don't sign congressional budget plans). Romney endorsed the Ryan plan; he encouraged others to support the Ryan plan; and then he literally made Ryan his running mate. Romney now owns Ryan's Republican vision.
If he didn't want this albatross, he should have picked a better vice presidential nominee.
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By picking Ryan, Romney wanted to instill a sense of seriousness into the campaign. They are not just going to run against Obama and his plan...They have their own plan...Wait a sec...What? Oh no...Not THAT plan, a different plan where we give huge tax breaks to the rich and eliminate the social safety net...Totally different from that one.
I can't see how R/R will be able to get away from that conversation with a straight face.
Looks like the rollout of the Team Romney/Republican economic plan is much like the rollout of the Team Republican health care plan:
1) say you've got a plan that'll solve all the problems your past ideas and policies have caused,
2) forget to present the plan
3) finally admit the plan is simply the ideas and policies of the last 30+ years than caused all the problems, i.e., do nothing but double down on reliance of the non-existent Invisible Hand. So we will see increasingly make it easier on the supply-side and worse on lower and middle class with tax cuts on all the job-creatty people and deregulate for the job-creatty people.
Hopefully enough people aren't stupid enough to buy it.
Despite having six years on the job, Mitt Romney just flat-out sucks at running for president. It should have been obvious to everyone from the amount of trouble he had fighting his way out of the wet paper sack that was the 2012 Republican primary, but the only people who can still ignore it now are the wingnut Wurlitzer players like Rience Priebus and the fawning media courtiers like David Gregory.
"Look, this is silly. . . ." Steve Benen
It might be silly Steve, but silly is how Romney roles. You people just have to deal with it.
I guess you mean "roll" and not "role", but it does bring to mind what Ryan's role is by design and by how Ryan will play it and the dynamics between Romney and Ryan because he does appear a visceral leader, motivator and intellectual idea man with all the policies moreso than Romney.
You're exactly right about Ryan, and that says something about Romney in particular.
What does it say about a candidate whose VP pick seems to hold more power than the candidate himself? No question that Romney made a bold choice in Paul Ryan, but it's also a conceding choice that has Romney forfeiting any possible claim of him being the leader of the Republican Party, now or in the future.
Romney is a manager. Others give Romney the marching orders and he carries them out using his "digits" as Grover Norquist instructed.
I've got a digit for them. It's the same one I've had for them for years now. I guess they don't like mine...
;-)
Everything the Republican Party does is fake... it's a lie.
It's actually quite pleasing to see them getting tangled in their lies, for once. It's about time these criminals were hoisted on their own petards.
It is too late for all of the Reich-Wing, Radical Republicans to disown their Vulture Capitalist, Fascistic agenda at the expense of Democracy and all of the rest of us.
We know you are Robme Hood and Ryan of Rottingham and WE VOTE !
I must say that I'm enjoying how the campaign is unraveling 2 days after its debut. Rmoney is pathetic and is nowhere near the value of money the sociopaths are putting up for branding and advertising. Unfortunately, the polarization will continue with no end in sight. I'm afraid we would have to have an extraterrestrial invasion for the "skeeters" out there to get anywhere near on the same page as the humanities..
Here is a good one for you . . .
What if the Radical Republican agenda all along was to run Ryan for President
( as Robme Hood's mistaken comment about him would indicate - calling Ryan the next President )
and that they will wait till their convention to announce that It is Ryan running for President --
so that the Obama Campaign and the quote " lame stream media " won't have much time to run ads telling the truth about who Ryan really is and what he really represents !
I'd say let's wait and see on such nefariousness. Paul Ryan for President is even less intelligent than Rmoney, after all Ryan can't even manage Rmoney's nervous laugh; the only thing he's got going is blow-job ears and the patented GOP sociopathic "personality" disorder.. You may have a plot though, I find it difficult to believe that the GOP adopted Rmoney over the Santorum\Bachman ticket.. I'll share my Ativan if you're right!
:-)
Williard's ego won't allow him anything but CEO/Owner/God/President title. It is the tea-baggers that will ensure Ryan gets promoted. Don't know if it will be via impeachment or one of their more looney tune gun nuts. Here's hoping instead they and their fellow Rethug congress critters all go down in smoke come November.
The Romney etch a sketch will be working overtime now.
Rawmoney is not just an entitled liar but has NO compassion for "US" little people! Ryan has just enough hubris to believe himself a true visionary! Hoepfully in November Americans will vote against them, because if they don't it's going to be a terrible 4 years with another "GREAT DEPRESSION" on the horizon!
It's interesting to watch conservatives, seasoned conservatives like Joe Scarborough and others, claim that Romney isn't tied down by the Ryan Plan, something which Romney himself argues by virtue of having his own 'plan'.
Now, as Steve has shown, you can only make that argument when you actually have a plan to present, not some vague, ambiguous outline with no real substance.
And this brings us to what might be not just a significant turning point in the Presidential race, but House and Senate races across the country.
If Romney doesn't present a real, substantive plan of his own, does that not by extension make the plan of the Republican Party the "Kill Medicare" Ryan Plan? And if so, are we looking at a potential reversal of the 2010 elections, this time favoring the Democrats?
Governor Romney just lost his last chance to broaden his base by choosing Representative Ryan as his running mate. Ryan does not help the Governor reach out to women, to gays, to any African American or Latino voter, or to young people. That leaves a very small group of voters whom he has now secured -- white (mostly old), straight men. Congrats, Republicans!
I really don't understand why people like Mitt and the others in the tea party think that God is not watching. They truely have no hearts or souls, they care about no one but the greedy rich and will let this great country fall because of their greed. God will have his day with each and everyone of them and we as americans can't let them break us. So get out there and vote for Obama and help our future stay bright. God bless America....
Ryan was as Romney's VP because it changes the topic from the tax returns and shores up Romney far right support with the Tea Party. However, tax policies and by implication Romney's taxes will still be an issue. The topic may change for a while to the VP pick, but Dems are not going to let the tax returns go. The VP choice may also help with the Christian right since Ryan is a Catholic. If Romney expects Catholics to vote Republican because Ryan is on the ticket, that will not happen. The bishops may support the Republicans, but that does not translate to votes. Finally, Ryan may solidify Romney's support among the rest of the Republicans who may be questioning his new found conservatism. Ryan is going to be hammering the President on his current policies and jobs record, but if Obama and the Dems are successful in creating the real debate on the direction of the country's spending and tax policies, the Ryan's criticisms on jobs are going to get lost in the debate.
The most idiotic thing to me is that they say by cutting taxes (and welfare, SS, Medicare, Medicaid, general public services) that automatically the people saving on taxes will donate to charity.
They love those assumptions of invisible hands everywhere.
But then I ask myself; what would they raid? Oh yeah… more no bid military contracts.