(credit: AP)
April 2011 — House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., right, walks Tuesday through a tunnel on Capitol Hill with committee member Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., on their way to a GOP caucus meeting.
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I hope none of us will have to suffer either one of them for long.
I would support Mark Meckler for Vice President before Paul Ryan, the career politician who doesn’t really believe in anything and chooses his path based upon polling numbers. At least Mark is heartfelt.
Ryan is the tawdriest of political hacks, a vacuous beltway droid who has picked up the mantle of the TPP only because it keeps the camera pointed in his direction. Nice hair, but nothing underneath those follicles.
Shame on the Republican Party. And shame on America for creating a political system that makes someone like Paul Ryan reach this level. A planetary embarrassment, we are.
Michael,
What you have yet to understand, is that in the great voting void of the USA, a hefty percent of folks who deign to stir their stumps to vote will only perceive a healthy head of hair, and vote for it.
Judith,
Agreed. Isn’t that the political and societal dysfunction I just described?
M.
Speaking of Ryan, this Wikipedia entry should probably be cleared up if it’s not true: “Ryan was only 16 when he found his father lying in bed dead. Ryan’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather all died from heart attacks at ages 55, 57 and 59 respectively, which inspired his later interest in health and exercise. His father’s death provided Ryan with Social Security benefits until his 18th birthday, which he used to pay for his education at Miami University of Ohio.”
If it is true, OMG.
Next stop: Economics & the Weinermobile. Let’s just get this one over with…
Another one we’ll need to get past, post haste. I offer the following again from the notoriously dynamic Wikipedia:
“At an Atlas Society meeting celebrating Ayn Rand’s life in 2005, Ryan said that ‘The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,’ and ‘I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are. It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff.’ In response to criticism from Catholic leaders, in 2012 Ryan distanced himself from Rand’s Objectivist philosophy.”
You can run, but you can’t hide.
I know my reasons for it but can anyone else tell why the reelection of President Obama isn’t a sure thing? Paul Ryan, his ideology and proposed budget are a very loud but miniscule segment of the population.
Here’s the list of why the re-election of Obama is not a sure thing:
1. Electoral College
2. Mason-Dixon Line
3. “Voter Fraud” initiatives
4. Apathy
5. USA broken political system
6. Corruption
You forgot number 7; racism
Could you rephrase the question? I’m not sure I’m following.
Why is the 2012 Presidential election even remotely close?
Mitt Romney isn’t well liked in the republican party and he picked a far right ideologue for a running mate, which should scare away or alienate the 20% of the independent or DTS voters.
Got it, thanks!
Michael,
I would disagree with any of those reasons. What are some of the solutions and is either one of the big two truly addressing them?
I guess it was on another blog where I said Obama should be up by 20 points. But, IMO, most of the comments made on this thread have much truth in them. A 10 pt. spread now isn’t particularly comforting; it would be warm and fuzzy if it was 10/25/12 as my unscientific analysis of polls convinces me that a 10 pt. spread with ten days to go is money in the bank–barring discovery and release of photos showing a candidate with the other candidate’s wife, or worse, brother. Michael, I too worry about the what if’s, such as you’ve listed. I had to finally break off communication with an old time friend–drinking buddy, really–over the voter photo I.D. laws–in PA. It is really an issue of a blue collar guy unable to rid deeply rooted prejudices, digging his heels in, as teacher-like, I tried to explain by word and evidence that this was a problem only in the minds of Republican St. legislatures, even citing the Brennan Institute–to no avail. And after years of being a hang-around-town-junkie, he got clean and became a union fireman in NYC. Not a liberal culture. So I agree, this area poses a huge area for theft of votes ala Fla. all over again.
Agreed, electoral college is obsolete; it should go and Obama , hell, even long haired guys with N. Y. tags on their car have to be real careful south of the M/D line. And the last I heard, a Republican owned firm made the electronic voting machines, such an opportunity for putting in the fix. Back to paper ballots I say.
So I believe it is now time to become viscious, use the tactics that propel Republicans into the White House. I’ve read that Bill Clinton will be very active; this is good if the goal is to stop the hard, lying right. Ben, I know we differ on this, but achieving everything at once, to me, means achieving nothing at all, except the ability to say I remained true to all my ideals, but accomplished none.( No offese meant.)
They’ll have more money, most likely, so spend wisely where the returns are the greatest. You know the drill, but now’s the time to let the punches fly, and the thumbs start scratching those eyes. Because I think the very existance of what’s left of our Republic is at stake now. These know-nothing, nasty tea people, united with ALEC, PACS, Scalia and the anti-democratic forces of countless billionaires, will destroy our freedoms and our planet defending the holy tenets of unlimited capitalistic greed.
And when they debate, its becomes a bar brawl, as so many haven’t a clue how to construct an argument. But as I say so often, everyone thinks they’re smart, and indeed each individual is stronger in some areas than others. That hardly means all opinions are to be valued equally, or that even many opinions are worth the time to be heard.
Arrogant? Perhaps. But there are just too many people jumping out of the pages of Idiot America and wanting to engage one in debate that one must develop an insensitivity, or go totally insane.
Oops I wouldn’t disagree with any of those reasons.
If I understand your question correctly, you’re asking why Obama wouldn’t be re-elected.
Here is my hyper-over simplistic analysis.
There is an old baseball saying that says a major league baseball team is essentially guaranteed to win 50 games, lose 50 games and the other 62 determine the standings.
I see our presidential race the same.
So how does Obama lose 32 games?
Again, oversimplicity. Two ideas:
1) I can do it on my own.
2) We are in this together.
Now is the time to unleash the counter attack against Ryan, led by the likes of a pitbull like Carville Time for a line item assault on the realities of Ryans beloveded Tea Pary/Republican budget, pointing out every cinsequence and sneaky ploy to avoid those consequences by the proponents of this phoney baloney, pie chart dumbing down of America’s finances.
I’d like to do a little piece on the tens of thousands of wasted dollars in the private health care system and the nearly fatally inept care provided to me over the last few weeks locally, culminating in an admittance and admission of how seriously/critically ill I had been, but my input ignored by the E.R. personnel, faulty diagnosis made and me sent on my way, with the pneumonia growing more serious each day and the leukemia doing a slow burn throughout my body. Thus, after a sleepless, pain filled night, my sister from the Boston noticed I was on line and Skyped me, but found me basically incoherent and not in the hospital as scheduled.Thus, this 40 year employee and breaker of Polaroid’s glass ceiling took contol, as I was a basket case, called my doctors, demanded I be admitted–for she knew the precarious state of my health since returning from Nam. Then a girl that helps me now arrived and a new Dr. came in, talking about putting me in a nursing home, to which she quickly called him a moron, exited the room, called my sister, who then called my PCP–he’s out of Sutter North–and my former cancer Dr. from S.N. and within half an hour I had a bed. And I’m still on oxygen, with blood work all over the place–all very strange, as I know a great deal about much of this. And lingering behind the cloud of pneumonia, is a dark spot, still a possible lung cancer.
So I’ll personally debate Ryan, with his life time health benefits, but proposing a budget devastating to the middle class bulwork of America. We don’t need anymore hypocrytes and heartless toadies to the Kocha-Kola Boys.
te health care system
Michael Tomasky, citing Nate Silver numbers, speculates about a coming Obama landslide:
“Michael Tomasky on the (Possible) Coming Obama Landslide”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/04/michael-tomasky-on-the-possible-coming-obama-landslide.html
Referring to Nate Silver’s chart here …
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/author/nate-silver/
Tomasky says …
“All this explains the interesting little chart toward the lower right-hand corner of Nate Silver’s home page, headed “Electoral Vote Distribution.” It rates the probability that Obama receives a certain number of electoral votes. Most outcomes, in a range running from 150 EV’s up to 400, rate around a 2 percent chance of Obama receiving that number. The highest spike on the chart? It’s at around 330 EV’s, which Silver reckons Obama has a 14 percent chance of hitting. Now, most political journalists would chuckle derisively at the idea that Obama is going to carry home 330 EV’s. Deride away. And while you do, bear in mind that Silver called 50 out of 51 states last time (counting D.C.; he missed only Indiana) and every single Senate race.”
Some points from AFL/ CIO
First five points
1. It caters to the 1%.
Ryan’s proposed tax cuts for the rich are larger than the windfall they received from former President George W. Bush.
2. It ends Medicare as we know it.
The budget would move toward a privatization of Medicare…and anyone new to the Medicare program could see costs rise by nearly $6,000 by 2050.
3. It eliminates the health care safety net.
The budget would cost 47 million people their health insurance benefits over the next decade.
4. It increases unemployment.
The House budget seeks to balance the deficit on the backs of unemployed Americans, whose ranks would increase under the plan.
5. It threatens our economic competitiveness.
The plan slashes $871 billion from government investments in education, job training, scientific research and transportation infrastructure over the next decade.
http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Political-Action-Legislation/What-s-Wrong-with-Paul-Ryan