Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
9 Reasons Romney's Choice of Paul Ryan for Veep Is Smarter Than You Think
http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/9-reasons-romneys-choice-paul-ryan-veep-smarter-you-think***SNIP
1. Romney was in danger of losing badly, so a gamble was worth the risk. The polls and trends were going in the wrong direction as Obama was ahead by 9 percent among all voters and 11 percent among independents. As Michael Goodwin writes in the New York Post :
'Romney was on course to lose the election...perhaps by a landslide...Independents, despite being unhappy with Obama, were even more unhappy with Romney. And too many Republicans remain unenthusiastic about their party's nominee.'
***SNIP
2. Romney is now seen as bold. By picking a controversial choice, a young, mediagenic, so-called brainy numbers guy, and one loved by the conservative base, Romney passed up the gaggle of more boring white guys who populated the pundits' predictions, to pick the radical one. But here, in fact, Romney has it both ways. Ryan is not a Palin or a Rubio -- a wild card -- but rather a well-positioned Republican with major mainstream and corporate credibility, whom the media often has gone ga-ga over. And Ryan is an insider -- Erskine Bowles (the co-chair of the Bowles-Simpson Deficit Commission, and rumored to be the next Secretary of the Treasury), has lavished lots of praise on to Ryan, who served on the commission, as have many others.
3. Did I mention Ryan is Catholic? We hear how the conservative Catholic bishops are trying to push Catholic voters to Romney, who has obviously come late to his anti-abortion stance. And among Catholic voters, Romney's Mormonism isn't exactly a plus. Still any anti-abortion politician is better than Obama in the bishops' minds. For the bishops, their task became easier with Ryan (even if they have a problem or two with his budget proposal), who is as conservative as they come, being against abortion even in cases of rape and incest. Those Catholics who are inclined to vote conservative are now very excited. And, in fact, it's not just far-right Catholics to whom Ryan appeals. A lot of voters in this country, for some reason, really like candidates who stick to rigid principles, even if those principles contradict their own. Ryan will get some of those voters.
4. Romney now has even more money. Romney has been doing fine, raising hundreds of millions from investment bankers and other pots of big wealth from the 1/10th of the top 1 percent. Still the Ryan choice is a huge motivator to the group of rabid right-wing billionaires around Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers who fund and raise money for right-wing candidates, and an array of right-wing groups. Ryan has been a Koch favorite for years, supported and featured in myriad ways. The Kochs have promised, with Karl Rove, to raise $400 million for the so-called "independent superPACs". Now, with all those billionaires jazzed over Ryan, the sky may be the limit. There is talk of the superPACs and the Romney campaign raising and spending $1.2 billion -- and now maybe even more.
8 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Huh? Back in 2009 - 2010, it was determined that he was way way outside of the "mainstream" and he has never been involved in "corporate" anything. He's been primarily a government-job-dependent-entity.
Regarding #3, did the author actually do any real research? The Conference of Catholic Bishops panned his focus -
http://www.usccb.org/news/2012/12-063.cfm
http://www.usccb.org/news/2012/12-076.cfm
And the Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good had an equally excellent response to Ryan -
http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/cacg-back-bishops-ryan-budget
“As Catholics deeply committed to the Church’s social teachings, we at CACG were thrilled to read the letters from our bishops to members of Congress calling for budgetary decisions that protect human dignity, protect the poor and most vulnerable and advance the common good. Instead, the GOP passed a budget that is mean spirited at best and, at worst, rooted in the kind of social Darwinism the Catholic Church has always opposed. As the bishops clearly and unambiguously stated, ‘The House-passed budget resolution fails to meet these moral criteria.’”
“Consequently, we were somehat surprised to hear Speaker Boehner dismiss the bishops’ concerns, commenting that the bishops need to take a ‘bigger look’ at the budgetary issues. Of course, you can take a big look or a little look at the Gospels, and no where will you find an endorsement of the GOP’s Ayn Rand-inspired commitment to laissez-faire, trickle down economics. The bishops are taking they big look at the GOP budget, and they don’t like what they see.”
“Even more disturbing were comments made yesterday by Congressman Ryan, who said that the letters from the bishops’ conference were ‘not from all the bishops.’ Since 1919, what was then known as the National Catholic Welfare Conference, and is now known as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, for all those years, the bishops’ conference has been at the forefront of the fight for social justice. More disturbingly, Mr. Ryan seems to be trying to pit some bishops against other bishops, which is emphatically not what political leadership in this country is about.”
“As Catholics deeply committed to the Church’s social teachings, we at CACG were thrilled to read the letters from our bishops to members of Congress calling for budgetary decisions that protect human dignity, protect the poor and most vulnerable and advance the common good. Instead, the GOP passed a budget that is mean spirited at best and, at worst, rooted in the kind of social Darwinism the Catholic Church has always opposed. As the bishops clearly and unambiguously stated, ‘The House-passed budget resolution fails to meet these moral criteria.’”
“Consequently, we were somehat surprised to hear Speaker Boehner dismiss the bishops’ concerns, commenting that the bishops need to take a ‘bigger look’ at the budgetary issues. Of course, you can take a big look or a little look at the Gospels, and no where will you find an endorsement of the GOP’s Ayn Rand-inspired commitment to laissez-faire, trickle down economics. The bishops are taking they big look at the GOP budget, and they don’t like what they see.”
“Even more disturbing were comments made yesterday by Congressman Ryan, who said that the letters from the bishops’ conference were ‘not from all the bishops.’ Since 1919, what was then known as the National Catholic Welfare Conference, and is now known as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, for all those years, the bishops’ conference has been at the forefront of the fight for social justice. More disturbingly, Mr. Ryan seems to be trying to pit some bishops against other bishops, which is emphatically not what political leadership in this country is about.”
As much as Ryan traveled around pushing his extreme ideas, he was finally forced off the shill trail under withering criticism for his far RW policies. And now like the other zombies that the GOP seems to keep reanimating, here he comes again.
