Romney Picks Paul Ryan...

[billc]

On Ryan and seniors...

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/11/rasmussen-ryan-favorability-3925/

Looks like the Ryan choice was both bold and pragmatic. It still means that Romney and Ryan have to aggressively push to define Ryan themselves, rather than allow the media or the Obama team do it first.
Update: Commenter Florah Duh reminds me that seniors actually liked Ryan’s plan best, according to a Gallup poll in 2011:

A new Gallup/USA Today poll contains a counterintuitive finding: the age group most receptive to House Budget Chair Paul Ryan‘s plan to deal with the budget – seniors.
The poll finds 48 percent of seniors (those 65 and over) support Ryan’s plan over President Obama‘s plan, while 42 percent back the president.
That’s the highest total among the age groups tested – a 47 percent plurality between the ages of 50 and 64 backed Ryan, and a 45 percent plurality of those between 30-49 backed Ryan. But young voters overwhelmingly sided with Obama by a 23-point margin, 53 to 30 percent.
​

Maybe that’s because seniors knew better than to believe that the current trajectory would protect their benefits in anything but the short run.

​

 

[Empty Hands]

On Ryan and seniors...

Counterintuitive? Of course current seniors like the plan best! They've been grandfathered in! The evil genius of the man's plan is that when Medicare only covers 1/3 or 1/4 of seniors' health costs, it will be well into the future when all of today's seniors are gone. They won't have to be a part of the "shared sacrifice" of gutting the social safety net. If the Ryan plan went into effect immediately for all current seniors, then those numbers would be substantially different.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

I am really surprised by Romney's pick. To far to the right to pick up the independent voters. That is where this election will be won and he may have just thrown it away to shore up the Republican base!

Elder999 you are absolutely right in that Biden is really, really good when he has to be. The debates should be interesting but I do not think that the Republican ticket will be getting a lot of independents. Maybe even lose some senior votes with this VP pick!

 

[cdunn]

The most cynical part of me wonders if the Ryan pick is because the GOP power brokers have completely resigned themselves to the Romneyshambler losing the election, and they're positioning Ryan to be in the lead for thehead of the GOP ticket in 2016.

 

[granfire]

The most cynical part of me wonders if the Ryan pick is because the GOP power brokers have completely resigned themselves to the Romneyshambler losing the election, and they're positioning Ryan to be in the lead for thehead of the GOP ticket in 2016.

has the losing VP candidate ever had a chance to get office?
To me it looks more like a kiss of death from here....

 

[crushing]

Like I said, I'm willing to bet that when it's over, most of the media will be saying Biden won. It's the one serious thing he'll have had to do in four years, and he'll show up prepared, won't stumble, and will get some soundbite zingers in. In a true "Lincoln-Douglas," National Forensic Society, impartially judged debate, he'd lose, but that's not what the nationally televised campaign moments are, is it?

Don't even want to get into the whole Romney/Obama debate thing-there'll be more than one of those, and they won't be pleasant at all......

Expecting a Benston-Quayle repeat, especially with the comparisons of Ryan to Kennedy?

Actually, Biden was given one other important task and that was to float the 'support for gay marriage' balloon to see if it could possibly turn in to votes. It must have been a successful test to turn the anti-gay marriage hardliner Obama to support state's rights to legalize gay marriage and eventually make the party platform.

 

[cdunn]

has the losing VP candidate ever had a chance to get office?
To me it looks more like a kiss of death from here....

Dole took a shot at it - Granted, he let the public have 20 years to forget about his run with Ford, but it's been the trend that the runner up in the previous primary gets the next shot in the Republican party. Now, take a good look at the Republican field this year... and I wonder if this isn't meant to have a longer term effect in getting the base to think of Ryan as a national candidate instead of a local one.

 

[elder999]

Getting real for a moment, there are a lot of things to like about Ryan-he's physically fit, a hunter, and pro-second Amendment. There are a few thing to really not like about him, least of all his admiration for the work of Ayn Rand.

He doesn't "believe" in global warming. Or global climate change. Which is kind of funny, and makes me wonder which planet he's been spending this summer on.

He's a supporter of "personhood" for embryos-thinks they should be protected with all the rights of a person as soon as the sperm hits the ova. I get being against abortion-the man's a Catholic, and that's his perogative-but "personhood" is kind of kooky.

He wants to eliminate food stamps. I remember school friends whose families needed food stamps when their dad's got laid off. His budget basically cuts food stamps, so that corporations and people like Mitt Romney (and even me! ) can have increased tax cuts, or keep them. Ditto what he wants to do with Medicare-and, frankly, I don't see how giving our elderly vpuchers to buy their own insurance is in an substantive way different from Obamacare, or in any way practical without it.

 

[harlan]

He was probably in an alliterative mode. 'Let's see: Republican, Romney, and...how about Ryan. RRR.'

The new Three R's. Just rolls off the tongue. Like, KKK, and SS...S.

I am really surprised by Romney's pick. To far to the right to pick up the independent voters. That is where this election will be won and he may have just thrown it away to shore up the Republican base!

 

[Big Don]

He was probably in an alliterative mode. 'Let's see: Republican, Romney, and...how about Ryan. RRR.'

The new Three R's. Just rolls off the tongue. Like, KKK, and SS...S.

Yeah, because Romney and Ryan are so much more lily white than John Kerry and John Friggin Edwards...

 

[Big Don]

But they HATE the Ryan plan...
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[Empty Hands]

Can you really call something "reform" when the long term plan is to eliminate it entirely?

 

[billc]

You do realize the KKK is a democrat institution, and the SS is a left wing socialist group which would mean neither one even comes close to being associated with the historical or modern Republican party. And if you happen to look at the party platform of the nazi, the SS being part of that party, it more closely resembles the modern democrat party platform, and not the Republican platform...

 

[cdunn]

Can you really call something "reform" when the long term plan is to eliminate it entirely?

Yes, in the same way zero is a number.

 

[Big Don]

Can you really call something "reform" when the long term plan is to eliminate it entirely?

Wouldn't it be better to put forth your own plan if you don't like your opposition's?

 

[cdunn]

Wouldn't it be better to put forth your own plan if you don't like your opposition's?

He did. And got it passed into law.

If the American people really do elect the pluotcrat party to the presidency again, I hope you enjoy your tax hike.

 

[Big Don]

He did. And got it passed into law.

No, there has NOT been a budget passed during Obama's presidency

 

[cdunn]

No, there has NOT been a budget passed during Obama's presidency

Yet the requisite Medicare reforms were passed.

 

[Tgace]

Yet the requisite Medicare reforms were passed.

And you don't see anything wrong with that? We are passing reforms with no plan to pay for it???

 

[Big Don]

Yet the requisite Medicare reforms were passed.

Yes, Obama did cut $700 BILLION from Medicare and now screams about what Ryan might do.