Boom and Zoom Vs Turn and Burn
Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast says that Mitt Romney had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to prove he wasn’t an intellectually dead, boring white guy by standing up, just once, for his inner bipartisan self. Instead he blew it by caving in to the radical right. He could have come out and been cool for once; instead he stayed in the closet, clenched and constipated. “Think of it: The candidate will be running on his vice president’s ideas! It’s a staggering thought. Ryan might as well debate Obama this October, and Romney can square off against Biden.”
Democrats are celebrating. Are they overdoing it? Ryan is smart. He’ll hold his own on the trail. He’ll talk about the fiscal cliff coming at the end of the year, and he’ll probably make as credible a case as any conservative can make that Obama won’t make the “tough choices” and Republicans will. And don’t forget that he has a grudge against Obama personally, ever since that George Washington University speech of Obama’s in April 2011 when he invited Ryan—and made the guy sit there and listen to the president of the United States trash him. That’s probably a motivator. And the Democrats might overplay their hand. That’s always a temptation when the target is as big and juicy as Ryan is.
This is the way the world looks from the perspective of the Obama campaign. They’re celebrating already. At least this is how they want the world to think Ryan’s choice looks to them, so confident they are. In their world, little Paul Ryan craves vengeance for the humiliation he suffered at the hands of the masterful Barack Obama when first they debated. It’s a world where all Mitt Romney really wants is to swap old-white-guy jokes with Joe Biden, where at least Joe Biden will be self-aware of the irony. “Please grow up” is Tomasky’s final advice to Romney.
One can’t help but be touched by Tomasky’s solicitude. The left is so caring that they not only know who to pick to carry their flag, but they know who best to choose to carry their opponent’s standard. And such is their decency that they want Republicans to have a fighting chance. Not win easy over a clown like Ryan with the Mormon missionary bringing up the pitiful rear. That would be too simple, like shooting fish in a barrel. Assuming liberals shot and assuming they owned barrels.
Wouldn’t it be too easy? That depends on whom you ask. One of the most interesting things about the 2012 election is that the pollsters have stopped even remotely agreeing on who is ahead. (Source, Real Clear Politics)
| Rasmussen Tracking | 8/8 – 8/10 | 1500 LV | 3 | 44 | 46 | Romney +2 |
| Gallup Tracking | 8/4 – 8/10 | 3050 RV | 2 | 46 | 46 | Tie |
| IBD/CSM/TIPP | 8/3 – 8/10 | 828 RV | 3.5 | 46 | 39 | Obama +7 |
| CNN/Opinion Research | 8/7 – 8/8 | 911 RV | 3.5 | 52 | 45 | Obama +7 |
| FOX News | 8/5 – 8/7 | 930 RV | 3 | 49 | 40 | Obama +9 |
| Reuters/Ipsos | 8/2 – 8/6 | 1014 RV | 3.4 | 49 | 42 | Obama +7 |
| Democracy Corps (D) | 7/21 – 7/25 | 700 LV | 3.7 | 50 | 46 | Obama +4 |
So who’s on first?
The inimitable Jay Cost, writing in the Weekly Standard, tries to make sense of the contradictory evidence. “The conventional wisdom in the presidential race is that President Obama is a clear favorite. We hear this from the pundits in the press, we see it in the InTrade odds, and various predictive models built around the polling averages tell us this. But I disagree.”
For the last two months, President Obama has bounced around between 46 and 48 percent of the vote in the national polls, as well as most averages of the state polls. Impressive? Hardly. Forty-six to 48 percent is really just the core Democratic coalition, which every Democrat has held for the past quarter century.
The old Democratic party broke down in 1968, the start of a long presidential exile. The party managed only one victory out of the next six; worse, it saw the collapse of its traditional New Deal coalition built on the Solid South, the white working class in and around the big Northern cities, and farmers/ranchers in the West. Slowly but surely, the party rebuilt itself into the coalition we know today – dominated by racial and ethnic minorities, upscale white liberals (especially activist groups like the environmentalists and feminists), government workers, and young voters. It was in the 1988 election that we saw the party coming back from the brink, and every cycle since then the Democrats have enjoyed a floor of about 46 percent of the vote, built around roughly 90 percent of Democratic support, 40 percent of independent support, and 10 percent of Republican support.
If you look carefully at the national horserace polls, you will notice that these are the only people supporting Obama over Romney, more or less. And if you look carefully at the presidential job approval polls, you will notice that these are also the only people approving of his job performance, more or less.
In other words, Obama’s polling right now suggests that he has only locked down the core Democratic vote; what’s more, those not currently in his voting coalition tend to disapprove of his job as president. Indeed, the Gallup job approval poll finds him with just 31 percent support from “pure” independents, i.e. those with no party affiliation whatsoever.
When I was asked about Cost’s article by a friend, I said, “Why is the information so mushy? My belief is there is a very large element of indecision in the public mind. What we see is data with a huge amount of hidden variance.” A large part of the information has gone where the polling can’t get at it. Activists on either side of the political divide are in danger of being blinded by big, bright batches of tight-lipped, grimly committed enthusiasm — their own base. But the voters in no-man’s-land are going to decide this fight, and whom will they pick?
Jay Cost thinks the way that symmetry will break is in Romney’s direction. The question is whether Ryan will help make that happen. What Tomasky’s argument comes down to is that by not mushing down the middle on social issues and government entitlements by choosing Ryan, Romney has made it easier for the Dems to pick up the uncommitted by “extremism.” They’ll come in on Obama’s side because Ryan won’t promise them Government Cheese.
The counterargument is that by picking Paul Ryan, Romney has decisively broken from Obama’s policy path. The selection of Ryan means Romney is no longer running as Obama-lite. He’s bet that the guys in no-man’s-land don’t want Government Cheese. They want a real job. They want a real future. They want to be citizens of the greatest country on earth again.
But that Tomasky even thought Romney would seriously consider running as a watered-down version of Obama should worry him. Romney “broke” the unexpected way. He confounded Tomasky’s conventional — or pretended — wisdom, which indicates that the Republican presidential candidate fully understands the comparative asymmetries in their respective platforms even if the liberals don’t.
Romney won’t play Obama’s game. He will play to his strengths: the economy and the deficit. Romney calculates that this will have more potential energy than Obama’s coalition, characterized by Cost as “dominated by racial and ethnic minorities, upscale white liberals (especially activist groups like the environmentalists and feminists), government workers, and young voters.”
He won’t fight the turning game, where the media throws out the talking point of the week and the seminar speakers go out and beat up on Mitt on all the TV shows. He’s going to fight at the service station and the grocery story; and at every cash register where the sad truth is largely outside the power of the press to misrepresent.
Was that a mistake? Should Romney have chosen an ethnic candidate to play the ethnic game? Or a woman to play the gender game? Even though they might be qualified for the job? Or has Mitt Romney understood the essentials and showed up with an F6F Hellcat where Tomasky was expecting an F4F Wildcat to emerge from the clouds? The outcome of the choice will be revealed in November.
Also read: Rand and Ryan: Symbiosis, Not Soul Mates
Belmont Commenters
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The left’s opinions, that we get through the MSM, are entirely insincere.
They are very nearly incapable anymore of anything that could remotely be called “sincerity” as they are that delusional, not to mention reactionary.
They’re just pulling your lariat, cuz that’s all they *do*, or attempt.
If the left is happy and we’re happy then I guess this is just one friggin’ happy day!
About those polls:
At this point in 1980 Reagan and Carter appeared to be neck-and-neck, according to all the reputable polling agencies. There wasn’t so much as a hint of the spectacular blow-out that November.
Let’s hope were heading for a repeat. Considering the contortions the media (pollsters included) have already been willing to go through on Obama’s behalf, we shouldn’t be suprised to find that many of the published polls are just an exercise in left-leaning wish-fulfillment.
Again, here’s hoping.
Another thing: If there’s ever been a President that people would be afraid to tell a pollster they don’t like, it would have to be Obama.
These days – nights, really – I’m being polled almost twice a week. “Obama all the way” I tell ‘em, laughing fiendishly as I hang up. The Dems know it in their hearts, I think, so all they’re really doing is whistling past the cemetery. In the words of Manteo Mitchell, “Faith, focus, finish…”
The importance of any poll is the “fine print”.
How was the poll taken? Are they registered voters or “likely” voters?
How big was the population actually polled? What was the weighting assigned to party preference within the universe of actual polled/questioned people?
It all makes a difference. People in the media love a horserace. And they aren’t above jimmying the polls to get what they want. Some polls have the Democrats weighted at +9% preference. That is pretty crazy.
I would wager that the candidates both have internal polling that is much more accurate and detailed than the stuff we are generally spoon fed by the Talking Heads.
And Michael Tomasky is a buffoon.
The minute I saw the ad showing Ryan throw Grandma off the cliff, I knew the left was afraid of him. This choice makes me like Romney more.
Over at the Gormogons, the Czar really likes Ryan.
http://www.gormogons.com/2012/08/ryan-proves-romney-is-serious.html
Me, not so much, but it’s an interesting choice.
Without the Senate, Romney, if elected, will have tough sledding. So, no Senator as a running mate.
I think that Mr. Romney and his people decided that they are going to win Florida and Ohio and Virginia without a “favorite son” on the ticket. So, no governors need apply.
On the other hand, maybe Rep. Ryan puts Wisconsin into play?
I think that they may be right.
Let the Games commence!
cellec@3 If there’s ever been a President that people would be
afraid to tell a pollster they don’t like, it would have to be Obama.
I don’t tell pollsters anything. I figure 90% of them were hired by one or another
commmie front groupinstitute for making everything peachy. Screw-em. They will find out my opinion come November.Does this put Biden’s assumed re-nomination into question? Obobo certainly needs something to inspire his minions and good ‘ol grandpa Joe sure leaves a lot to be desired in that category. Just wondering……?
@ 8. sanhetnik
I figure if they’re going to disrupt my evening at home then I at least owe them bad information to make ‘em look stupider and more dishonest than they intended to be. The polls I won’t lie to are the online guys.
The problem for the Democrats in dumping Biden is that they would be admitting that he was a mistake in the first place. They have a lot of trouble in admitting to mistakes. If I was Joe I’d hire a food taster.
I read a interview of the guy who was responsible for the Pew Florida polls that had the Dems at such high numbers in the poll. You could almost hear the guy start to stutter when the guy doing the interview started asking how it was possible that the number of Democrats had increased when the number of State wide offices held by Republicans had increased and other questions abut the polls methodology.
It is interesting that after Romney Picked Ryan he almost immediately got 1.2 million in donations. If you follow the money and the job approval ratings Romney wins.
The information pool and the trust in those who are supposed to supply good information to the pool has gotten so low that those who peed in the pool can no longer use it.
I was talking to someone and we both stated our estimates of what percentage of the ballot both candidates could expect. On a wholly unscientific, completely subjective basis, we both blurted out that Obama might poll 45% of the vote.
Thus agreed in our biases, we argued about what the stated totals might be. My friend, citing no authority in particular, allowed that the incumbent’s machinery might give him 3% more by means fair or foul.
Leaving aside the numbers above, which are completely unobjective BS, it is clear that if the incumbent has a shading advantage then for Romney to win clearly, he must win big. For example, if Obama is really polling 45%, he can publicly expect to emerge 48 to 52 after the shading has been factored in. So if he can find another 2% from somewhere, he has a ball game.
For any shade factor sf > 0, then Obama can expect Obama(underlying) + sf and Romney can expect Romney(underlying) – sf. Of course if sf is close to zero then it is completely clean.
Now I don’t know what the underlying is and if the shade factor even exists, but it did once, or was alleged to have. In the Election of 1876, even more than 2000, the question of the shade factor became crucial.
Structurally the Election of 1876 is a twisted mirror image of the present. The Republican’s controlled the White House and the Senate. The Democrats had the House. The Democrats were the Party of the KKK but US Grant’s administration was riddled with corruption with the oil industry of the era, the railroads. Lincoln was only 8 years in the grave. The South was occupied by Federal troops. And yet the country survived what must have been a fantastic constitutional crisis.
The nomination of Paul Ryan makes the 2012 election a “must win” for the Democrats. Losing to a Romney-Ryan combination raises the possibility that Hope and Change may be rolled back. If Ryan boosts Romney big time then there is a clean decision. Else, if Obama can get close, then there is the prospect that like 1876 it may go to a protest over who won in what state and some kind of deal will be cut.
By getting Ryan on the ticket, it means that even if the problem goes to a deal-making process, there will be less room for Romney to back down on.
Ryan is a good pick because he brings anti-Obama let’s-do-it-another-way ideas, he can demolish Obama BS and he can put some meat on the bones of the Romney campaign.
Also Romney multiplied by Ryan equals R-squared so they have a statistical advantage in explaining the Obama variation. All the Democrats have as a counter is BO.
I think the Realclearpolitics average of the polls is as close to the truth as one can get before the November election reveals the true truth.
@ 12. wretchard
W, thanks for the historical insight. Did the election of 1876 have any factor analogous to the Tea Party? I’m asking because I think you and your friend, unless your friend is in-country, could be under-valuing an element on which most US politicians and east coast pundits seem to remain in denial – to their eventual detriment.
Romney is competing the only way he knows how, which is the same model that has benefited him throughout his business and political life. There is no objective “perfect” campaign strategy that will maximize his chances of success. Think in terms of a military campaign during wartime; fraught with unknowns and chance developments.
Romney is playing the odds by marshaling resources, has now brought on board a top notch EO, and is executing tried & true doctrine and tactics. It may work or it may not, but he is giving it his best shot nonetheless.
BTW, it’s likely that the only way Romney can offset the national media bias is to goad BHO into making self-inflicted errors. Ryan can help with that.
It is the summer. Nobody really watches or pays attention to the Presidential race right now. There was a little conversation about the Senate race down at the ol’ donut shop. I haven’t been going much lately since coffee is on my verbotten list. My 6 months is up and my chances of a follow up heart attack are reduced by surviving this long, so I may become a daily again. It is an essential part of the southern ol’ boy system.
All the polls represent this far out is a trend line. So far that line is flat. It shouldn’t be. Berry should be several points behind. All that is keeping him in the game is Romney.
I don’t see how the Ryan pick will change anything. How many EV’s will PR bring? I keep looking at the map and seeing zero. Not sure any pick would have helped him.
The Olympics is over tomorrow so Monday we start politickin’. Make sure you have fresh batteries in your remote.
Axelclod will spin this. By picking Ryan. Romney is trying to keep the focus on the economy. As Cost pointed out, the media is not going to co-operate. Romney needs to run an ad every Friday saying it’s payday if you have a job. If you don’t have a job, blame Berry. Simple short and in every market. Axelclod will try to turn the economic focus into a debate between Keynes and Friedman. He’ll do that because most people don’t know or care. They just want jobs, not arguments on the finer points of economic theory.
The debate should not be about economics. It should be about JOBS. You economics majors will say economics IS about jobs. Not to Joe 6-pack.
Go Manteo, GO!
Interesting to see that Tomaskey gives no evidence of comprehending that math makes the continued provision of that sweet yummy government cheese impossible.
It seems that the left figures that mashing down on the buttons even harder will keep the cheese coming forever and ever- but it won’t.
Romney at least knows this and Ryan became prominent attempting to deal with it.
So the left can claim they’re happy about Ryan all day long, while they discus their tender hurt feelings about mean Republicans like Paul Ryan.
It doesn’t matter. Either the public at large can be made to understand the grim future hurtling towards them- or they can’t. And they’ll elect Romney and Ryan- or they won’t.
But one way or another the era of endless government cheese is ending.
“Also Romney multiplied by Ryan equals R-squared so they have a statistical advantage in explaining the Obama variation. All the Democrats have as a counter is BO.”
You have been on a roll lately. Or should I say a pie?
“He won’t fight the turning game, where the media throws out the talking point of the week and the seminar speakers go out and beat up on Mitt on all the TV shows.”
The turning game. An interesting aerial combat allusion. Could it be that Romney’s relatively nimble team combined with .50 caliber Ryan guns will out turn and out shoot the bandits? Break the OODA loop?
Sorry, not very deep…but it has been a long and eventful day.
ta
Did the election of 1876 have any factor analogous to the Tea Party? I’m asking because I think you and your friend, unless your friend is in-country, could be under-valuing an element on which most US politicians and east coast pundits seem to remain in denial – to their eventual detriment.
About 95% of the people I exchange views with live in the United States. The remaining 5% are with Australians who coincidentally happen to be in prediction, data mining and open source analysis business as professionals.
Interestingly enough, it is the Americans I talk to who are convinced Romney will win by a landslide. The Australians make far more use of prediction markets, polls, etc. to look ahead. And they tend to think Obama is pretty strong, not because they want him to be, but because that’s what the evidence they have at hand tells them.
My own views are very much swayed by my American contacts. But I appreciate the Australian analysts’ views because it keeps me honest. Do I want Romney to win? Or is Romney really ahead?
Such replies as I have given point to the very factors that are often missed. The shade factor, the subtleties of an election by the states rather than by popular vote. And history. But to be perfectly honest a lot my estimate of Romney’s strength comes from anecdotal evidence. There’s a vibe that I can feel, and while I should be honest enough to realize that vibes have limits, I learned never to sell one’s instincts short. The “sixth sense” often tells you something. The challenge of the analyst is to find out why that impression is being received.
But ultimately nobody knows the future until it happens. Even if your sixth sense has been right 9 out of 10 times in the past, this might be the 10th time. All the same my gut feeling is that Jay Cost is right. Romney is ahead. I think it is panic time for Obama. But he has too much to lose to give it up without making every effort. It’s going to be a damned hard fight, no holds barred. And it may not end, as the Election of 1876 did not, on election night.
There’s nothing else to do but to see what happens.
As to 1876, the impression I get was that the Democrats were riding the backlash of incumbency. It was about recovering some of the power lost by the Southern States in the Civil War and using the issue of corruption to frame it. What’s principally interesting to me is the demonstration of just how flexible the United States really is. Things bend, but they rarely break completely. Moreoever, a lot of the changes that we think are going to happen in a dramatic instant actually build up over decades until the situation is remade.
There’s a great deal of stability from the sheer momentum of so large, populous and powerful a country as the United States. It’s like 200 trillion ton warship that is a b***h to turn. But when it starts to turn it just smashes aside icebergs, coral reefs, and any insignificant obstacle in its way.
with baracky sticking it to the catholic church, i wonder how the ryan pick affects the catholic vote?
Dear Democrats,
re. your glee at the Ryan pick.
A Silk Pillow. Tennis Balls. Agincourt.
Sweet dreams.
I think Paul Ryan is a brilliant, incisive choice – drawing a clear line in the sand – do you want to fix our problems or not? Someone on Fox News this a.m. said that Romney had bypassed his friends by selecting Paul Ryan as VP. And the response was something to the effect, “That’s right – he picked the man right for the job, not to have coffee with.” Between the two of them, they have the financial experience and know how to turn this country around. I was hoping for Ryan, but thought Mitt would go for the safe choice. The fact he picked a lightening rod heartens me. A lightening rod who has proved he has the country’s best interests at heart and isn’t afraid to tell the truth, whether it is palatable or not. The contrast between the Oboma/Biden grim and dim team vs. the Romney/Ryan joy and competence is starkly wonderful.
suggestion: boom and zoom vs. choom and doom
If the ghost of Jimmy Carter appeared to Obama in the manner reminiscent of Dicken’s Ghost of Christmas Future, he would transport him around the country to show him the answer to the question “will I be re-elected?”
Transporting Obama to a gas station and he points to prices hovering around $4 a gallon.
Back over to a dilapidated storefront Carter’s bony finger points at the store, the closed down car dealership and the other shuttered building that only recently closed.
Carter then takes him to the inner city where unemployment is 50% of the young black population.
e then takes him to the basement of a family who’s recent college graduate offspring has taken up residence because he has no prospects.
Obama says to Carter’s Ghost “so I will be re-elected to change all of this?”
Carter’s Ghost says “This is your change. And your re-election will bring more of it.”
I work in the financial industry and sit out in the open with a bunch of traders all day. Many of my colleagues are Jewish, and seem to be more Pro Romney than I am
Florida may be tough though because of the elderly, now that Ryan is his VP. I am sure many will buy into the ryan pushing grandma over the cliff commercial… Gutsy move, though. I think we need Rubio in Senate as the margins there are close.
I am proud of this pick. Clearly a choice is presented before the country. I hope and pray that America is not that stupid, and that we are prepared to fight tooth and nail when it comes to ‘recounts’ due to close races. The Dems will be as dirty as we have ever seen them before – from Obama on down.
Monumental choice before the nation.
I don’t think Sarah Palin knew the whole story when she signed on. She doesn’t smile like she used to, like she was finally told the facts of things.
Now poor Mr. Ryan is being pressed into service… Someone needs to warn him about the government and our media, and about the truth of stuff up there.
All that’s needed now is video of R&R visiting with folks while enjoying a grilled chicken sandwich at Chick-Fil-A, and my weekend would be perfect.
” … it is the Americans I talk to who are convinced Romney will win by a landslide.”
Count me among them. Much like you it may be just because I want it so much but I feel it strongly and I did also ‘way back when Reagan won.
Are the polls reliable? They’re showing that they’re not; many like myself aren’t answering the phone and I see some others are giving false answers.
Many haven’t made up their minds, they’re waiting to hear the actual campaign speeches and debates—they’re thinking and watching.
And the media bias has a large unseen component: people answer one way but don’t really mean it but want to look hip.
And—my own personal favorite!—the stock market. I’ve long thought it’s an election predictor. Given what we know about our mess, why isn’t it in the tank?
After the conventions, after Labor Day, things will begin to solidify but I predict the polls will be nowhere near the actual outcome. If you don’t believe me yet, see the recent Cruz-Dewhurst election in Texas—the polls were off by a factor of almost three: 4-5% lead for Cruz vs more like 15%. And this was a hot deal; my phone was ringing off the hook nightly, gobs of money spent right up to the last and they still didn’t get it right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zTW6Ekqn-4&feature=player_embedded
W
The ‘Crime of 73′ was still ringing in the American electorate’s ears during 1876.
For those with short memories…
The American Congress went off the silver standard ( Crime of ’73 ) against the desires of the silver states and the farmers.
It promptly triggered the end of the Comstock Lode — and triggered depression conditions that were maintained right through to 1907, more or less. It was a time of the hardest of hard monies — and caused Baum to pen the Wizard of Oz — a political tract crafted as a child’s tale.
Dorothy wore SILVER slippers as she HAD to follow the Yellow Brick road…
Heading off to the city loaded with the GREEN stuff.( Lincoln’s Greenbacks, now good as gold, a money printing solution for increasing the money supply/ easing the burden on debtors [ farmers ] proving good policy. )
For those wondering — the creation of the Federal Reserve System was and is the fulsome embodiment of Baum’s cure.
And, of course, it’s 1873 that most closely matches the 2008 fiasco.
Since these matters have been long ago covered at the Belmont Club, I shall not press them further.
But, as you can see, 1873 destroyed the Republican hold on the Federal government.
Such a cynical population. Seems like most voters are aware that Lyndon Johnson fibbed about the Gulf of Tonkin, at least the 2nd alleged torpedo boat attack. The same folks are quite certain that Nixon lied about many things in his administration. They KNOW that William Jefferson Clinton lied about his compulsive womanizing, and the shitty way he used his toadies in the Government to destroy women who accused him.
But of course, none of these delusionals can bring themselves to face the possibility that the Kenya Kid might be capable of stretching the truth.
——————-
I’m exhausted today, wretching repeatedly at the screaming hypocrisy of sending Eric “Any of you murderers looking for an automatic rifle” Holder to comfort the bereaved Sikh community in Wisconsin.
Just a little background on the election of 1876. Reconstruction was failing because of the stubborn resistanc of the ex-Confederates. Hayes knew that the votes of the newly made Black Freedmen in the South were being suppressed, hence the suspicion that perhaps Hayes had won the popular vote, narrowly.
It had been 11 years since Lincoln had been assisinated, and the fire of the reform after the Civil War was going out. There was a great new adventure in the West, and people wanted to put the War behind them. The Republicans had been revolutionaries in 1856. By 1876, they were the establishment.
Which is why the accepted wisdom was that Grant was “corrupt”. There was a ton of corruption in war time procurement in the country (the North) during the Civil War, and in the building of the transcontinental railroad, yet the memory of the country does not call Lincoln “corrupt”.
One real corruption was the way that the War Veterans were pensioned off, which is where a lot of the government budget surplus went – veteran’s pensions to keep them all voting Republican (like my Great-great grandfather).
Everything old is new again. Vote buying is as old as any government which goes to the Polis for permission to do something. The Athenian Greeks were famous for it.
While I am pumped up about this election, I caution myself. Especially when I hear chatter on this website about OODA loops. I remember the same being said last election when McCain picked Palin – that he got in Obama’s OODA loop…
A lot of work to be done. Team Obama will fight in the gutter as he has been. Voter fraud will be rampant. What has he to lose? If he does lose the election, would anyone investigate? I can hear cries of racism and klansman coming after the President (and Holder) because they are black. The media will have a field day.
So, it will be a dirty hard slog.
I also wonder how economic data will be reported over the next few months and the spin that will take place claiming that things are picking up.
“And yet the country survived what must have been a fantastic constitutional crisis.”
Exactly. 4 more years of the Obomination will not destroy America. 4 years of Romney will not save it.
Boom and Zoom vs Turn and burn are two different schools of air-to-air combat, for those of you who have no interest in the military arts.
They were developed in ’42 by the US Navy. The Japanese Zero was the worlds best fighter from ’40 to ’43. Roll rate ( how quickly a fighter can rotate around it’s axis) and turning circle were the best in the world. The US Navy had to fight this wonder machine with the Grummen F4-F Wildcat. The Zero could hang on it’s prop and climb straight up. The ONLY aircraft in the world at that time with the power to weight ratio to do that. The Wildcat had the climbing ability of a weather balloon. The US Navy, like Manteo, doesn’t quit. The Wildcat had 3 advantages over the Zero. It could out dive the Zero. It had armor to protect the pilot and Self sealing gas tanks. So Commander Thatch figured out what was called the thatch weave;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thach_Weave
Boom and Zoom is the tactic of diving on the enemy, shooting them in the back, then zooming off before they can react. Turn and burn is flying in circles trying to turn a tighter circle then your enemy so as to get a shot at them. A bunch of fighters doing turn and burn is called a furball. ALL the great aces used boom and zoom. Now that you know more then you ever wanted to about ACM between prop driven fighters, we just need to hope that R&R is doing the boom and zoom, while the clown posse runs in circles.
One thing I would bet on is the debate between PR and JB gets tremendous ratings.
Polls don’t get cell phone users. How does that affect the results?
We will now find out if Mr Ryan ever failed to return a library book. May R&R patent a burning ripost regarding the total failure by the media to investigate Obama. We need replays of by the GOP of one of the Donks sacred moments, “Have you no decency?”
If you will allow a little more unscientific evidence. The local news, in New York City, did a man on the street survey of the Ryan choice this morning. Around 10 people were surveyed, seven were positive, one lady, insincerely claimed she had not ever heard of him, one african American fellow said he did not think it mattered who was in office regardless of party, and a seventy year old hippie was appalled and said Ryan did not represent him or any of his friends. If this is Ryan’s reception in NY, obama is screwed.
The Ryan pick tells me two things about Mitt Romney. Both give me much relief.
1. Romney is serious about reform.
2. Romney is clever as a fox: Ryan’s inclusion destroys Tomaskey’s thesis (what might be more “bold” than a Ryan pick?) while ending Steyn’s and Krauthammer’s clamorings for Romney to provide “a plan.” His plan is Ryan’s plan. Which, dare I say, is America’s plan.
Three critics with one stone. Not bad!
It doesn’t seem, somehow, like eight years since Bush was elected for a second term. But I recall then, and when McCain ran, a number of conservatives saying they’d stay home.
No idea what part of the margin they were. Be nice if they turned out this time and Ryan might be the man.
Still, a number of conservatives are interested in foreign policy and we need to hear from R&R on that front.
I would hope they avoid discussing the porous, osmotic borders Richard described between the inside enemy and the outside enemy. Could really be mischaracterized.
“He’s going to fight at the service station and the grocery story; and at every cash register where the sad truth is largely outside the power of the press to misrepresent.”
Ryan was quoted today as saying to small business “You DID build it!” There’s the line in the sand. Do you want to vote for the empty-suit academic who never earned a dime in his life but somehow thinks you are a sh*t who wouldn’t be able to feed yourself without HIS help or do you vote for the guy who respects you and your accomplishments, great or small? The answer says more about each of us than about the candidates themselves.
I’d like to see Ryan deconstruct the truly disgusting Obambus ad run during the Olympics in which POTUS declaims, “I want to tax rich people to strengthen the middle class”. SAY WHAT? How about we eat the rich people to strengthen the middle class, hmm?
Obambus plan for his second term: It’s a cook book!
I saw a few Democrat friends early this morning and told them Romney made his choice for VP. “It is Paul Ryan,” I said. “He’s a murderer from Wisconsin.”
I was at a little party for my neighbors, college students who finished up and are moving. They are going to grad school because they cannot find jobs. They are taking on more debt but staying off the jobless roles. They say now that they wish they had gone trade school.
Personally I think Obama lost the election when he revealed his hostility towards small and medium size business with his “You didn’t build that” speech. It turned uncertainty into certainty — a certainty that things will go very bad for business if he is elected. Then came the polls that said he may well win again. So basically the sectors of the economy that employ three quarters of Americans are going to be reluctant to hire. Of course they already were but it will be more so now. If the September unemployment figure is 8.4 percent it will be a long October for Obama.
When McCain picked Palin, she energized the Conservative base in a way that McCain himself could never do. But she wasn’t ready for the fight and in a short order the Obama slime machine pretty much disabled her.
The Obama manure spreader consisted of a union of media talking heads and SNL’s Tina Fey. Now imagine a mental midget like Katie Couric tangling with Paul Ryan – she’d be lucky to survive it at all! And what could SNL do to Ryan? Make him look nerdy?
Romney is trying to lure the Obama campaign into a battle, much like Bush did with Al Qaeda in Iraq. US forces decimated Al Qaeda in short order. Romney/Ryan will utterly destroy Obama on issues.
Remember that Obama’s weakness is issues. Obama has won his last 3 elections by digging up the dirt. Obama can’t hold his ground based on the issues – he’s incredibly weak there and he knows it. Unlike Obama, who selected his intellectual inferior, Romney’s management experience has led him to pick one of the brightest in Washington – Ryan is a B61 with dial a yield whereas Biden is a wet firecracker.
But, and this is important, Romney has to start using his war chest to pound Obama with negative ads. Non-stop. Because I guarantee you that Obama will not stop crap like the “tax returns”. The race has hardly begun.
Obama in 2012? HAHAHA! – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4nvhAZ0vr0
#16. stoicheion
Romney needs to run an ad every Friday saying it’s payday if you have a job. If you don’t have a job, blame Berry. Simple short and in every market.
Brilliant. It would amount to the “it’s the economy, stupid” slogan of the 2012 campaign.
Unfortunately, I think that the Romney team would avoid doing anything remotely provocative on policy; they prefer the policy-position-free personal attack (witness the GOP primaries).
I have no faith in Romney’s character or political bearings. There was talk that Romney was Obama’s preferred GOP candidate, and I believe that fully.
If Ryan’s presence in the campaign means that the policy side of the campaign is joined, there may be some hope. However, not even Palin could pull McCain’s cohones from the political fire. A good, even a great VP candidate cannot replace a listless, lifeless candidate who in his heart of hearts believes nothing more other than it might be nice to reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for a few years.
Romney IS smart, but he’s a vapid kind of smart. Obama obviously isn’t very smart, but he IS cunning.
I’m afraid that cunning beats vapid.
Picking Ryan won’t change things in the race.
This is a blip.
People who decided to vote for or against Obama will still vote for or against Obama.
Therein lies Romney’s problem. Too few are voting for him on his own merits. If people thought he was Obama lite before, he remains Obama lite now.
No matter who he picked for VP to muddy the waters on his record of Gay-”marriage”, gun-banning, universal healthcare socialism, some people are inevitably going to realize that Romney is the Presidential candidate, not Ryan.
The same thing happened in 2008 when people realized “Hey, who is this McCain guy next to Palin?”
dla @ 43: SNL’s Tina Fey. Now imagine a mental midget like Katie Couric tangling with Paul Ryan – she’d be lucky to survive it at all!
Allow me (or not) to inject a little caution here. First, Fey’s take on Palin was hysterical, and even Palin managed to chuckle at it. Second, interview clashes are not always won by intelligence or righteousness. And third, Ryan is brainy by modern elected official standards, but he is not going to be proof against the big democratic guns that will back up even the dimmest MSM talking heads.
We shall see. He’s getting his first call up to the big leagues. Few rookie years go 100% great. He’s still going to have to find the right working relationship with Romney and the campaign. I hope he knows who the current leader of Pakistan is (I have no idea). Because he is supposed to be brainy, watch every interview turn into Jeopardy.
It will be interesting. If he does well, this is going to be a referundum on how many US voters are adults who understand the game, and sadly is going to be decided by just those moderates that Rush Limbaugh knows and loves (not). Meanwhile the Obambus “campaign” is going to be slinging mud like nothing we’ve seen on the national stage in the twentieth century, while even the Democrats’ issues-based campaign is based 100% on lies and absurdly false mathematics. Hey we’ve been pioneering that in Kalifornistan for ten years now, about time to see it on the national stage.
“But, and this is important, Romney has to start using his war chest to pound Obama with negative ads. Non-stop.”
Yes, but not ad hominem attacks. The Obomination is still personally popular. His approval rating is held up by that. His job approval is in the tank and has been for quite a while. Numbers point to most people seeing him as a nice guy that is in over his head. So you attack his policies while connecting those policies to his results.
Every Friday, in ALL markets run a short ad saying it’s payday. if you didn’t get a paycheck it’s because of Obama killing jobs. Then in critical states (Ohio, Florida, PA.) list the companies that have gone under during the Obama administration. list the jobs lost. Interview the former business owners and former employees. Cherry pick to show the best examples of how Obama’s policies destroyed jobs. It might be worth the money to demonstrate a cascade of economic failure. Do they still call it that in econ101?
The average American sees the economy and jobs as 2 separate things. Is it worth the time and money to establish that connection in the minds of the voters?
When people say they need some R and R they mean going on vacation and taking it easy. But that isn’t what R and R means now. Right now the country needs some real R and R, and that means Romney and Ryan.
What we need right now is not
Some Rest and Relaxation
We’ll rest and relax by the pool
When Mitt has saved the nation
By setting Paul to straighten out
The fiscal mess Obama
Has made of things that make us shout
We blame this on yo mama
And on your commie Kenyan dad
Who didn’t want you either
So go away you horrid man
So we can take a breather
Yes, R and R is nice at times
But resting isn’t tryin’
And relaxation waits ‘til we’ve
Elected Mitt and Ryan
RomneyCare + prescription drugs and Wall Street bailout positions the Romney/Ryan effort merely as the latch to the ObamaCare and Government Motors winch. Together, they form a ratchet strengthening the government’s hold upon the citizens.
What I see is that no matter who wins the election, America loses
Walt – good one – one quibble – 5th line – “Matt?”
First let me say that as a TEA Party loyalist, who is technically a Republican but knows that the Institutional Republicans are as much TWANLOC as the Democrats; the choice of Ryan was a good one for Romney. Perhaps not the best choice in my opinion, but a good one. Ryan cements the TEA Party/Patriot Movement back to the campaign. They were not necessarily going to be willing to stay when inevitably Romney did something RINO. Now I think they will stay.
Any other likely choice had downsides for holding the base to Romney. Rubio is a good man and undoubtedly a Native born citizen, but not qualified to be president as a Natural born citizen as defined by the Supreme Court in Minor -v- Happersett (88 U.S. 162 Argued: February 9, 1875 — Decided: March 29, 1875). If he was selected, at least part of the base would have fractured off because of the Republican Party ignoring the Constitution. Christie has the combativeness desired by the base, but is overfond of Islamic Extremists. Not viable. Pawlenty and other Institutionals would have been accepted for now, but rejected at the first bump in the road.
In the matter of the polls, most are bogus.
Never pay attention to a poll until you have looked at the “internals”
First look at the R-D-I breakdown. If it is not somewhere close to the election exit polls from the last general election [2010 in this case], it is crap.
Second look at who was surveyed.
Historically, “All Adults” or “Adults” polls skew Democrat around 10% over electoral reality.
“Registered Voters” skew Democrat around 5% over electoral reality.
“Likely Voters” are the most accurate. There still is a margin of error, but it is closer than anything else. Only Rasmussen is consistently using “Likely Voters” at this point.
And don’t let them distract you with arguments about cell phones -v- landlines. ALL major polling organizations use a mix of cell phones and landlines, and have for the last few years in response to the changes in personal communications.
And there is another skew. For the last couple of elections, Conservatives have been reticent to respond or have deliberately lied about who they support. Not all “polls” are from polling organizations. Telling your true preferences may make you and your spouse and children a target for Leftist thugs, and no one trusts the government to either prosecute the thugs or protect against them.
The media frequently use REAL CLEAR POLITICS’ Poll Average as a surrogate for the state of the race. And the Left and Journo-List 2.0 know this. Every week or so, a poll comes out that shows a sudden swing to Obama. And when you correct for the skews above, you find that it is an “outlier”. But we have enough regular “outliers” to indicate manipulation and in fact the average is skewed.
For instance, the CNN poll in the list that showed Obama up 7.
If you look at the poll internals, it is for “Registered Voters” and not “Likely Voters”, which gives a 5% skew to the Democrat automatically, and they have 40% Democrats in the poll and the breakdown should be along the line of 32%D-35%R-33%I ± 2% or so. If you allow for this, Romney is leading within the margin of error.
The poll was commissioned and paid for by CNN. Golden Rule: He who has the gold, makes the rules. The polling company knew that if they gave CNN a poll showing Romney ahead, they would never do another poll for them again. And the polling company was Opinion Research Corporation International. ORCI is known for being a pro-Democrat company anyway.
This poll had two purposes. To play with our heads, and to bias the REAL CLEAR POLITICS’ POLL AVERAGE which is what many media types use as their polling data.
There is discussion comparing the battle to the F4F Wildcat -v- the Japanese A6M5 Zero. Each had its advantages, depending on the type of battle that evolved. That lasted until the F6F Hellcat became standard. It could beat the Zero at all points of flying. The Republicans, for all their somewhat justified enthusiasm today do NOT have an F6F in the battle. But they have something that might do as well, if not as spectacularly.
Saburo Sakai was the highest scoring surviving Japanese ace of the war, flying the Zero as part of the Japanese Navy’s Tainan Air Wing. When we invaded Guadalcanal, his wing escorted the first Japanese bombing raid against our forces from his base at Rabaul. He had never encountered American Navy planes before.
Like all major aces, he was a proponent of Boom and Zoom. He was above and behind what he thought was a formation of a half dozen F4F’s. Radial engines, barrel shaped fuselages, squared-off wings. He tried to Boom. He quickly found out that he was wrong. Same general shape, but much bigger, the Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers he was “Booming” had .50 caliber rear turrets. [Actually, I have flown in that turret in a TBM (same plane made for Grumman by General Motors under contract)]. It did not end well for Sakai.
Plane shot up. Paralyzed on the right side, blind in his right eye. The only way he made it back 900 miles to Rabaul was willpower in the face of adversity and the fact that he was one of the most gifted pilots in the Japanese Naval Air Force.
Buraq Hussein Obama is no Saburo Sakai. Neither are the Democrats. Buraq Hussein and the Democrats are diving on a target that they think can’t shoot back. It can.
If we have elections in November that decide the fate of our country, this is about the best that the Republicans can do. It might be enough.
Wretchard, you mentioned your data mining acquaintances in Australia. Are they familiar with the nature of the polls we have here?
Subotai Bahadur
Knight1/50
Thanks. Don’t know what I was thinking. Saved much embarassment by beating the edit time by one minute.
I believe the country generally knows Obama has been a failure, but they will be reluctant to replace him unless and until they are convinced that the Romney alternative will be safe and better than what we have now. This is similar to the situation in 1980 when the country knew Carter was a failure but had not yet gained confidence that Reagan would be safe and better than Carter. Things didn’t shift until the final debate but when they did, the results were definitive.
What the Ryan pick shows me is first, Romney selected an energetic and youthful man who is very bright. Second, he will present specifics with a compelling case. This will only slightly blunt the MSM distortions but the debate between Ryan and Biden will most likely add confidence to voters wondering if the R&R team will be safe. Third, Ryan gets under Obama’s skin. This has a chance to provoke Obama into mistakes. Fourth, Romney is very bland and he did pick someone with more pizzaz than he has (though neither is Mr. Excitement).
But if R&R do not return fire when O makes ridiculous charges then they are not going to win. All along I never thought Romney could win but that Obama could lose. Now I think R&R can win. Whether they do depends on their willingness to use their ammo.
Sorry, but @newrouter 24 wins the thread.
42 @hdgreene
The meme making the rounds on the lefty interwebs is “zombie-eyed granny killer.” Can’t remember the name of the toolbag that came up with that gem, but honestly I don’t care anyway. Hi-larious
43 @dla
I know I’m going to mangle this analogy, but the Ryan pick seems to demonstrate the maxim that 9s hire 10s as subordinates and 5s hire 2s & 3s (*cough*Joe “Choo-Choo Hairplugs” Biden*cough*).
Honestly, I’m not a fan of Romney and share Old Salt’s skepticism (forget promises and look at his record). But this veep pick has lifted my spirits a bit. Probably the best we could have hoped for, even though my selfish, evil right-leaning libertarian lizard brain secretly wants a firebreather.
46 @Josh
Fey’s Palin act was stale by the end of her first performance of it. Mildly chuckle-worthy at first then quickly descended into the type of liberal drudgery misnamed “comedy” like that spewed by Stewart/Colbert.
49 @MSO
That’s exactly what I’m concerned about.
I have no Repub friends who will vote for Obama this time. None. I have many Dem and Indy friends who will also not vote for him this time. There are a few who will. In every case, those voting against are seething. They are tight-lipped. Once they are clear that the coast is clear, then they will let you know where they stand, but they make sure they are in safe company.
One thing is clear, they cannot wait to vote this clown out. The conditions have to be right for them to say so, so I know they are not telling pollsters the truth. People have learned that secrets do not stay secret around Democrats, and they also know some polls are really covers for the statists, so they lie to pollsters. They fear the statists, so they will just wait for the November vote to express themselves.
Watch the Dems scream voter fraud, when they get crushed.
“The results do not even come close to the polling!”
“Dude, that means your polling sucked. Sucks to be you.”
Who has the time to answer annoying phone poll questions, particularly political ones? My normal response is no response now. They’d barely get a “Good evenin…” when, SLAM, the phone is down.
There will be bias in polls towards those fools with enough spare time to answer. I doubt the bias is random.
Go with your gut, voice it.
That bum Obama just gutted the work requirement from welfare in order to increase welfare case loads. He wants to be King of Government Cheese.
The law specificly stated that there was no flexibility with the work requirement. Rule of law means nothing to this bum. He will only ramp up his illegal predations in the second term.
30% of US house households get a means tested assistance from the US Government at an average of $9000 per household.
His presidency is the first tie in his life he ever faced any criticism and I think he will go to extreme lengths to srew over those of us who engage in free enterprise.
The good news about the Ryan pick is that Ryan is in it to change the way things are going, not as Dole and Mc Cain did when they ran for POTUS as a vanity effort. Peter Robinson quoting Ryan at Ricochet:
“You can’t “run on vague platitudes and generalities,” he told me earlier this month. He was speaking about Bush in 2004 and Obama four years ago. But he clearly believes that the same holds true for Romney in November.
“He’s already endorsed these things,” Ryan said. “I want a full-throated defense for an alternative agenda that fixes the country’s problems. I want to show the country that we have a solution to get us out of the ditch we’re in, and to be proud about it.”
Ryan seemed unconcerned that pushing his policy agenda on Romney might damage the candidate. “I think life is short,” Ryan said at the end of our final conversation. “You’d better take advantage of it while you have it.”
Although, I still have my misgivings. Going over his budget proposals, there seems to be little of hatcheting, slashing and burning of useless guvmint programs, regs and departments that I would like to see. Ryan has never really worked in the private sector, beyond lesser jobs early in life. It shows. There doesn’t appear to be a great appreciation in Ryan of what the private sector could do if the guvmint would just get out of the way.
I am also less than enthused about his fabled Medicare cuts. Seems to me more like a shifting of the costs to the States than a real reform effort. But that’s just me.
I hope Ryan brings a greater toughness to the Romney campaign and a willingness to call it like it is. Romney has done better than McCain, but he still hasn’t really taken it to Obama head on. Unless Romney does, he could done in November.
I fear Old Salt is all too perceptive when he writes: “Romney IS smart, but he’s a vapid kind of smart. Obama obviously isn’t very smart, but he IS cunning.”
Wretchard said: “About 95% of the people I exchange views with live in the United States. The remaining 5% are with Australians who coincidentally happen to be in prediction, data mining and open source analysis business as professionals.
Interestingly enough, it is the Americans I talk to who are convinced Romney will win by a landslide. The Australians make far more use of prediction markets, polls, etc. to look ahead. And they tend to think Obama is pretty strong, not because they want him to be, but because that’s what the evidence they have at hand tells them.”
How did the details of their predictions pan out in the previous election cycles?
How do they collect their raw data? What is the raw data?
If you can’t say, can you give us their publicly available employers/corporate affiliation?
“Ryan might as well debate Obama this October, and Romney can square off against Biden.”
Tomasky is an idiot. Everybody knows 99% of Obama’s brain is his teleprompter, so he should be saying Romney or Ryan should debate Obama’s teleprompter instead of Obama.
51. Subotai Bahadur
53. batman
Good points but my question is, will they shoot back? I have my doubts. Obama is a rich target but targets don’t get holes in them if no shots are fired and targets don’t get holes in them if all shots are misses. They are going to have to pummel him like no sitting president has ever been pummeled before. Obama is a classic case of hubris but do Romney and Ryan have what it takes to be his nemesis? I sure hope so.
I have said for some time that the Repubs not only have to plan for victory, they have to plan for defeat. If Obama wins it must be a pyrric victory that will permanently destroy the Deomcratic Party and all Leftist institutions.
Selecting Ryan as VP does this. Come what may, after the election there will be no doubt anywhere that the Dems are Tax and Spend Welfare State Fascists. And it won’t matter what the Repubs are categorized as, because they will be seen simply as Not Them.
Obama’s re-election means everything comes unzipped. And people will then have no trouble recalling who’s who if 5.56MM becomes the only negotiable currency and .22 cal becomes the only acceptable change.
WRT polling: I live in a blessed area. For example, when the *** festival is coming up, you go to the riverbank, stake out your spot and, in a day and a half, about ten in the evening, you come back and there’s your spot. Nobody’s taken it. Routine to see men, sometimes white collar types, sometimes construction types, bow their heads in a restaurant when the food comes.
I have a landline and two cellphones in the family. Never been asked about anything in the last three years except my views on windpower. Never. The economic issue has hit us, but unemployment isn’t nearly as bad as the state average. People are routinely pleasant.
My guess is we–meaning this area and this demographic–aren’t being polled and the choice is deliberate. But we do send republicans, the conservative kind, to various state offices and the House. So maybe the folks doing the polling know to leave us out.
This battle is long and far from being over. And even if Rommney wins in November it will be a close race. And the liberal/socialist crowd in this country only want one thing. Chicago Politics. That means Democrat party control all the time at virtually any cost. I just hope I’m long dead when it starts to get real bad in America….
49erDweet @ 4: “I’m being polled almost twice a week. “Obama all the way” I tell ‘em, laughing fiendishly as I hang up.”
I’ve long thought we ought to have a “lie to the pollsters” campaign. Whenever asked about who you’ll support, no matter how fervently you believe in your candidate, always answer that you support the Leftmost candidate. Since everything these days seems so poll-driven, let’s monkey with the polls.
In these dark times, you can create your own little bit of subversion.
Instead he blew it by caving in to the radical right.
There is a clear and easy proof that no significant part of the Republican Party is radical: the recent pro-Obmacare decision. When “Justice” Roberts ruled that the individual mandate penalty was actually a tax, he openly rewrote the text of the bill. This is clearly legislating from the bench, which is illegal.
The legal power to impeach lawless federal judges is provided in Article 3, Section 2 of the Constitution. But no effort was made by the Republicans to impeach Roberts and the other four “Justices” who voted to uphold the law (which was never passed but was enacted anyway).
How is that radical? If anything, an objective analysis of what happened in this example demonstrates that the Republicans behaved in a “moderate” (aka RINO) way.
The fantastic notion that there is a radical right is an invention by the media to have “issues” to talk about and wring their hands about, when in fact no such thing exists.
Thus, as has happened ever since FDR, the frame of the political “discourse” continues to shift leftward with each successive national election. This has happened every time, without fail.
Wretchard @ 12: “My friend, citing no authority in particular, allowed that the incumbent’s machinery might give him 3% more by means fair or foul.”
Also recall a couple of election cycles ago (Kerry/Bush, IIRC), some media mogul, I think the head of Editor and Publisher or somesuch, bragged that the media was good for 15 points in the polls in Kerry’s favor.
You can’t discount that bias. But how do you account for that?
Wretchard, re:”The counterargument is that by picking Paul Ryan, Romney has decisively broken from Obama’s policy path. The selection of Ryan means Romney is no longer running as Obama-lite.”
Your post’s arguments sound convincing, may be because I want to be convinced.
“By getting Ryan on the ticket, it means that even if the problem goes to a deal-making process, there will be less room for Romney to back down on.”
I think this is a bit like Cortez scuttling his ships, but for a different purpose. If you want to really energize the base of the Republican party — the base the demolished the Democrats in the 2010 election, you have to show them that you are serious. The base doesn’t want a deal making process. They want Obamacare gone, and they want serious spending/tax/entitlement reform.
Ryan’s budget plan may not go as far as I would like, for instance, but picking him says that Romney is in with the Tea Party and the base. It says that win or lose he’s tied his wagon to them.
The strategy here isn’t about future freedom to deal, it is about firing up the base in the same way that they were fired up in 2010.
Those who love govt cheese would never vote Republicans in the first place. The cheese-eaters are already in Obama’s 46-48% coalition. The mindless ones who only care about their ethinicity, their orientation, and their anti-male agendas are already in the 46-48% coalition.
The rest want to get on with their lives, they want jobs, and HOPE things would CHANGE. They don’t believe they are better off now than four years ago. They certainly don’t want NOW to continue.
I love to watch their debates.
1. Romney is winning.
2. The Obama Team know this.
3. They are very much afraid of Ryan, and are trying to caricature him in a decisive way.
4. Biden’s ‘liability factor’ now becomes a potential decider, especially if Romney highlights Ryan and Ryan delivers.
5. There is a tremendous wellspring of ill-will towards Barack Obama in the American electorate, especially or including swing voters who will decide the election.
6. Obama will pull out all the stops. He may be so desperate as to support Bibi and Israel against Iran, but don’t count on it.
7. Barring a Romney-Ryan overreaction to some Democrat provocation, the Republican ticket will win.
8. I think the margin will be 51-44, something decisive.
In all the blogs, posts, the hand of the Lord is not mentioned..What helped push the French Revolution along at it’s onset, was an unusual hail storm that wiped out crops..Starving country folk crowded into a starving Paris..Right now the worst drought in 50 yrs is hitting our corn supply…Food is being burned for fuel,(what folly)..Food prices are going up big time..Watch & see the Lord move..You can not mock the Lord the way our leader does, with immpunity..
Romney/Ryan in November.
Biden/Obama gotta go !!
While the lefties rant and roar
As they’re shown the “exit” door
Our new “clean-up” crew comes in to steal the show.
(poeetic license for all errors)
Romney is playing the odds by marshaling resources, has now brought on board a top notch EO…
Well, THAT would be a first. Normally the VP is a fifth wheel who dedicates pork edifices and acts as surrogate attack dog – that’s you, Al Gore.
But Romney, a real biz executive, may actually know how to use a sharp EO to good effect. It’s no wonder that the caring-and-sharing Facebook crowd began their slanderchant with volume set to 9 on the first day.
It’s about framing the debate. If the media and their polls can make people believe Romney is a dog the left might turn out and the right might stay home. I don’t believe they are delusional about elections and cut-throat tactics as they are about their economics.
When an electorate is not scared it always vote cheese. Clearest example is the prewar and postwar elections in GB. So the Q. is: are the cheese eaters scared enough? I hope the answer is yes now, but the skeptic in me whispers “not yet, things must get much worse before they will”. After all they overwhelmingly choose more pungent cheese flavor 3+ years ago.
re: Mr. Ryan.
I read this as a confident candidate picking someone best suited to help him execute the (largest) turn-around in history. And if they can win not only the senate, but get close to the 60 vote majority necessary to make real change, we’ll have a much smaller federal government at the end of his first term.
Government is largely a service industry, and Congress demands our institutions follow processes – rather than exercise intellect and judgment – which means not only can laws and regulation be (re)written to be “automatable” but largely self-service – assuming they aren’t just handed off to some entity closer to the people, if done at all (i.e. the individual, the family, the neighborhood, voluntary society, churches, charities, etc.). Big business escaped command and control Carnegie and Sloan industrial age management structures in the 70s and 80s (and headquarters’ staff shrunk from thousands to hundreds, often because the boards not only insisted this was required to save the business given emerging much lighter weight competitors, but they split the savings with the executive office to make up for the loss of royalty-like-perqs that all this staff delivered). All enabled by information excess rather than scarcity (computers, networks, software).
We’re long past time for governments to undergo the same transformation. Imagine the economic impact if 90% of those (well) above average (we’re told) Federal Employees move from being a below-the-line cost into the private sector, where at least some of them will create above-the-line returns. The budget will be in surplus before Romney’s first term is out. I figure (excluding national security headcount – which is something that can’t be deferred to others) we’ll have maybe 10,000 federal employees (and contractors behaving as employees) remaining (vice contractors competing to provide services) when the Romney/Ryan reorganization of the century is complete (will also set an example that other free peoples can use to prove that maximizing individual freedom does maximize individual wealth, power, and happiness).
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/08/06/a-city-on-a-shoestring/
Sounds about right. Especially since the Swiss Cantons range from 15K to 1.5M and they do it all (locally) – write and enforce the law, tax and manage everything. Their federal government can’t even build a highway without them agreeing to do the work. Granted, some cantons resemble the housing-association-from-hell but the Swiss can vote with their feet. A small price to pay for government and accountability close to the people.
As a radio talkshow host has famously said, California is already living in Obama’s second term. I don’t think anyone is sanguine about the state of the economy right now. The only question is do you believe that captialism is the cause or the cure. Most the people I know are openly against Obama but not all. I don’t seek out an echo chamber either. In fact, I don’t discuss politics in polite company. It just makes me too angry and when I am angry I am not going to convince anyone who isn’t already convinced.
In 2000 I voted in a crappy little suburb of San Diego and the union thugs were there. They had divided the polling place into Republican and Democrat polling stations with separate lines. And though they stood on the Democrat side of the voting booths they yelled and hurled insults at the few Republican voters. I was very well armed at the time and I really wanted to take these fascist poll crashers out but fortunately did not snap. The bottom line is though, Democrats employ lawlessness and thuggery and people are rightly fearful to express their true opinion in the land of the brave. I believe that Romney will win and the Left will cry foul with the MSM leading chants to nullify the election as they have done before.
Let’s build something together, oh wait -> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?_r=1
You see we allowed our elected few destroy what we once could do, but no longer can. Best to ya in November, if you think electing someone new is gona fixed the past.
According to Politifact’s rating system, Mitt Romney’s statements have been judged Mostly False, False, or Pants on Fire 46% of the time, versus only 29% for President Obama. In the Pants on Fire category alone, Romney is more than four times as likely to suffer trouser immolation than the President. Nearly one in ten statements by Romney earned flaming slacks, versus one out of every fifty for Obama.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/lyin-king-mitt-romney-is-winning-the-politifact-gold-medal-for-lying-by-a-mile/
Clearing up the record:
Two campaign ads — one from each side, both misleading in several respects — occupied much of the week’s political discussion. An ad by Mitt Romney’s campaign charged that a decision by President Obama would “gut” welfare reform. An ad by the “super PAC” supporting Obama linked Romney to the cancer death of a woman whose husband lost his health insurance after Romney’s firm bought the steel mill where he worked.
Both ads were labeled as untrue by fact-checking groups.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-false-claims-20120811,0,4345018.story
And as for the Wildcat – Hellcat analogy, both the Wildcat and the A^M2 Zero were designed as faster replacements for highly maneuverable biplane fighters, but still intended to fight the same way.
The Hellcat was a whole’nuther thing. The US could have made its own Zero and made it better, and did with the P-66. But the Hellcat was designed as a big, powerful fighter, literally able to overpower the Zero through brute strength. The F6F could not turn with the Zero at low speeds but it could at higher speeds, as well outrun and outclimb it. And take a whole lot more punishment.
One Hellcat pilot got 7 Japanese airplanes in one mission. They even had rear gunners but he did not care and just took the rounds they sent his way and fired back sixfold and then some. Of course they junked his airplane when he got back to the carrier.
So was Wretchard alludes, Romney does not plan to outturn Obama but overpower him.
Annoy #78:
You be sure to have a camera handy at the polling place next time. You might be the next Breitbart.
As a North Carolinian, this race reminds me of the Jesse Helms-Jim Hunt 1984 U.S. Senate race. Helms was a die-hard conservative-way to the right of Reagan, had a kind of marble-mouthed speech and was the scourge of not only liberals and the press, but of a lot of North Carolinian’s like myself-young, “educated” and a bit ashamed that such an unpolished neanderthal represented my state. ,
As a pig-ignorant, knee-jerk liberal and recent law school graduate, I made sure my car sported a Hunt bumper sticker. I had bought into the myth that Jim Hunt was the successful “education governor,” and was just the man that would smoke Helms into retirement. I realize now that Hunt was a classic “for the children” dumb-ass political hack of the highest rank. A more vapid, “legend in his own mind” fool would be hard to find.
The NC press, went whole-hog for Hunt for a good 2 years. Their democrat weighted polls had Hunt burying Helms-at one time up 19 points. Like everyone, I expected Helms to be trounced. The entire progressive South tuned in on election night eagerly watching. The Helms people came out from every nook and cranny of the hills, from every farm in the east and from the urban areas in the Triangle and Triad, where they were too embarrassed to admit they supported Jesse. On election night, Hunt was trounced, 52-47%, stunning the Dems. Dem Headquarters that night was as quiet as a mother’s prayer.
I feel the same mojo this year, yet on the conservative side. No one foresaw 2010 and no one foresees 2012. I think we’ll see a massive turnout to rid ourselves of this incompetent fraud.
Love that you used a “F6F Hellcat vs F4F Wildcat” reference. Classic.
I think the Dems are about as happy to see Ryan as bin Laden was to see Seal Team Six.
This election is a choice between globo-socialism and free market nationalism, pure and simple.
Well, maybe not so simple, because the media adamantly refuse to mention socialism, much less globalism. Last week the two great and much esteemed RINOs – Bill O’Reilly and Laura Ingraham – reached across the studio set to touch fingers and agree that Obama’s not a socialist. It was a confusion explanation, for me, at least. But Laura went to Yale and Bill went to Harvard, the implication being that we should take their conclusion on this important matter for granted. (Full disclosure: Bill’s degree was from the Harvard School for Public Administration, which many regard to be a pedigree prestige diploma mill hotbed from which a guy can purchase an MPA.) Man, that was one confusing segment, misinformative, too.
Then there was Mitt on Fox a few weeks ago. When asked whether Obama is a socialist, he raised his ass in the chair and rotated his hips, as if he had a hemmorhoid acting up with a monster itch. Our presumptive nominee, a Harvard Man (LLJ, MBA) went on to nonsensically answer that Obama was not a socialist but a left-leaning liberal. The Fox interviewer who had the nerve to ask such an obvious question did not ask for clarification on that. Man, that segment was not only confusing and misinformative, it was troubling.
So we’re disarmed on the election’s central question by the deadly combo of prestige and media exposure. Apparently there is no definable definition of socialism, which renders us supine on deciding this election.
Individuals matter (even Vice Presidents) — but so does arithmetic. The arithmetic says that government in the US (and most everywhere else, too) is going to shrink in absolute terms over the next 4 years. Every government can’t keep borrowing money forever. And since most of what government does is to take from Peter to give to Paul, a lot of Pauls are going to have to make changes in the next few years.
The only issue to be decided politically is — How will government shrink? The bad way would be for government to take an ever-increasing slice of a rapidly shrinking pie. The good way would be for government consciously to take a smaller slice of an increasing pie. Either way there will be Change, whether we Hope for it or not; and regardless of how any election turns out.
O’Reilly isn’t a RINO, because he isn’t actually a Republican.
What a succinct description of the current Democratic core:
racial and ethnic minorities, upscale white liberals (especially activist groups like the environmentalists and feminists), government workers, and young voters.
…In other words, what a rag-tag bunch of whining, pseudo-intellectual, other-worldly, entitlement-driven, immature, narcissistic nanny-state troughers.
Yet the current Republican core can’t handle it and the rank-and-file often cower in fear or bluster in over-reaction. That should tell you something — rather a lot — about the way Independents and alienated Republicans and Democrats are thinking about Romney and the GOP.
51. Subotai Bahadur makes a critical point:
And there is another skew. For the last couple of elections, Conservatives have been reticent to respond or have deliberately lied about who they support. Not all “polls” are from polling organizations. Telling your true preferences may make you and your spouse and children a target for Leftist thugs, and no one trusts the government to either prosecute the thugs or protect against them.
I think that this is a huge factor. It describes me exactly, and I can tell you the exact moment when it happened. Just before the 2010 election, I took a polling call and decided to answer the poll. It started out reasonable, but within a few minutes, it was obvious that it was a push poll, not a real poll. The questions were of the form:
“(candidate)’s platform supports cutting Medicare for seniors” Does this change your view of (candidate)?
Just for fun, I stuck with (candidate) all the way to the end of the poll. The person on the other end was getting more and more frustrated. Finally, he said,
“And for our records, is this (my name) we are speaking to?”
You could have knocked me over with a feather. Now I hang up on polls every time.
I’m sure my experience is not unique. Many many people are keeping very, very quiet about their political opinions right now. It’s almost dangerous to let them out. Take for example the poor woman whose business appears for a split second in an Obama commercial — she never gave permission — the footage came from a stock footage house. Regular customers were coming up to her and telling her that would no longer patronize her business because she had endorsed Barack Obama. She was freaking out and begging the Obama campaign to take the commercial off the air. Meanwhile the Obama administration is unleashing tax audits on Republican campaign contributors. There’s a sense of personal political fear and fear for personal safety that I’ve never seen in the United States before. I’m hoping that I’m reading things right — complete landslide for Republicans, unpredicted by the polls — and that we can then somehow survive the next two months of Barack Obama running the Presidency like a cornered, rabid animal and get him to voluntarily leave office on schedule.
Speaking of which, the Romney/Ryan budget plan(s)?
“The Romney plan of cutting the top tax rate to 28% and closing loopholes to pay for it is conceptually very close to what Simpson-Bowles recommended….If Mr. Romney’s numbers don’t add up, then neither do those in the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles plan that the media treat as the Holy Grail of deficit reduction.” – WSJ
Uhm, no.
As Howard Gleckman of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center points out, to make his numbers work Mr. Ryan would, by 2022, have to close enough loopholes to yield an extra $700 billion in revenue every year. That’s a lot of money, even in an economy as big as ours. So which specific loopholes has Mr. Ryan, who issued a 98-page manifesto on behalf of his budget, said he would close?
None. Not one. He has, however, categorically ruled out any move to close the major loophole that benefits the rich, namely the ultra-low tax rates on income from capital. (That’s the loophole that lets Mitt Romney pay only 14 percent of his income in taxes, a lower tax rate than that faced by many middle-class families.)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2012/08/09/the-bowles-simpson-and-romney-tax-plans-have-almost-nothing-in-common/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2012/03/23/paul-ryans-budget-plan-more-big-tax-cuts-for-the-rich/
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/08/ryans-budget-the-most-fraudulent-proposal-in-american-history.html
The aviation related memes in this begs me to ask, Mr. Fernandez, are you a flightsimmer?
@90. Yawn. There are only two things that will work.
1. Terminate ALL (That means ALL!) personal service employment contracts. They were part of Clinton’s “smaller government” scam…contract out to retired civil servants the same bureaucratic nonsense they did before retirement. Further, layoff all federal employees not yet having met their probation periods, and finally, cut deeply into Senior Executive Service (SES) and appointee pay rolls.
2. Operate on a cash basis. Meet the remaining payroll, pay key entitlements each month to the limit of cash receipts.
Wait out the wailing and gnashing of teeth.
When a mere boy at an engineering school a new quad was added to campus. Rather than create some architecturally significant design of walks and paths through the quad, to be ignored by students walking on the grass, it was left for a year or two, then the trod upon walkways were paved…
Same concept.
And yes, it is doable.
@83 J:
Great point. And it’s even more appropo – it is F6F vs. “ZERO”-bama.
My sense is that in 2006 and 2008 the electorate turned to Dems in the wake of Republican bungling and corruption (‘bungling’ being GWBs failure to bring and end to the WoT or at least articulate a reasonable strategy for it, and corruption being the GOP Congress porking it up instead of delivering on the Contract with America that got them control of hte House 12 years earlier).
McCain and Bush’s thorough ineptitude and institutional pandering in the 2008 financial crisis just cemented Obama’s win.
But it didn’t take the Dems long to prove they weren’t the change the electorate was looking for, and 2010 saw them get the boot in the House. Since the economy has only gotten worse since then, with more and more scandals looming and inflation hitting the average pocketbook, I have a hard time seeing anything but a GOP landslide this fall. Romney isn’t acting like a nutcase, which is about the only thing that I think could blow it for the GOP. If anything, Obama is the one acting strange…
State elections have swung hard towards the GOP. Several elements of the Dem core are unhappy with the Big Zero, and he really doesn’t have the charisma to placate them with words, while any deeds that might help him with them will only push the middle more towards the GOP.
Basically, Obama and the Democrats have worn out their welcome. They got elected to fix problems but only made them worse. I think the key tell is that in 2008, polls showed Obama and the Dems to be more trusted by voters on the econmy. Today, its Romney and the GOP.
#4 49erDweet
I take your satire to mean: in the racial climate that Obama has created what kind of person will answer a poll truthfully? Seriously. Do you want to be branded a racist? There is no downside to just saying, “Obama” to some nosy stranger.
Obama created this atomosphere.
Did he ever once use his prestige to address black teen pregnancy rates? Absentee fathers? Shaky parenting leading to lack of reading and math skills – all the things ravaging the inner city black community? All the things Bill Cosby brought up in his NAACP speech a few years back? Never. Obama’s tragedy is that he was never there for the important stuff.
What the democrats won’t concede is that Obama’s very election was America’s vote of confidence in itself. No matter what, the black community, the white community will never be the same. It was a dividing line. An entire generation of black and white kids will grow up not really knowing, not really understanding the racial mania of their parents and grandparents. The democrats’ refusal to see this is a mark of their coming irrelevancy.
A Simpson-Bowles type approach, combining spending cuts and tax increases, is the only way out of the budget mess. Why that will never happen?
Capital gains and dividends. Bowles and Simpson would tax gains and dividends at the same rate as ordinary income. Romney would make all gains and dividends tax-free for those making $200,000 or less, and set a rate of just 15 percent for everyone else. The Journal thinks these are conceptually very close? And I thought the Journal’s editorial page had no sense of humor.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2012/08/09/the-bowles-simpson-and-romney-tax-plans-have-almost-nothing-in-common/
JMH (#94) People turned to Demoncrats because the MSM made BH0 out to be a Messiah and everything he did was Golden, Not a peep about his gaff’s (57 states, etc…) or even a word about him personally, meanwhile John McCain was a boring and bungling fool, George W Bush had been so demonized that he could do nothing right, even his major AIDs help to Africa was wrong and un acknowledged, which is more then BH0 has even attempted.
apf @ 85: This election is a choice between globo-socialism and free market nationalism, pure and simple.
I wish. My perception is that Romney is as globo as anybody, and sadly Ryan hasn’t even discovered the issue.
As for socialism, if asked about Obambus, I guess the best answer is, “If you have to ask, you’ll never know.” The true answer is of course clearly yes, and the only question is in what way that is not entirely clear, or just who it is who is denying it. As well ask if Obambus breathes oxygen. It’s much more clear that he’s a socialist than it is that he is a US citizen, was born in Hawaii, or ever attended class at Columbia. Do any of those matter? Of the list, “socialist” is just a label, the others are matters of fact.
Let’s hope Paul Ryan plays the Vought F4U Corsair to Romney’s F6F Hellcat. A little “Whistling Death” for what ails’em.
Josh
@ 95:
A quibble: I’d say he is a Marxist, rather than a socialist. The two sets overlap but are not totally congruent. Socialists are more “hands-on” Marxists are more likely to be academics.
re : Unsk@58
I think Paul understands just fine. Check out the history of his family. He was raised with the best values of the America that we love. I know, I grew up with his father and uncles.
http://www.ryancentral.com/history.html
Paul needs our prayers.
This analysis all sounds great. Basically it says that Romney is a true conservative and has decided to make the election about the real and big issues that confront the country.
My question is…where is there another shred of evidence to that effect in Romney’s 64 year life, every day of which has been devoted to playing things right down the middle left?
Maybe he’s the biggest stealth conservative of all time; a bigger stealth candidate than the manchurian marxist, obama.
Pardon me for being deeply suspicious.
In the 80s election, I read the press to see what was happening. Reagan was almost a non entity. I think a similar dynamivc is going on with your Australian friends.
I don’t know who will win in November. There are a couple of things that may happen.
Liberals and Democrats won’t turn up. They wont vote Republican, but they wont vote for the guy who supports gay marriage or the guy who goes after the church.
There is a large fiscal conservative block of voters in both parties. Democrats who loved Clinton but wont pull the lever for a guy who didnt pass a budget. They dont trust Republicans either, for good reason. Ryan is going to get some headway here. Or they will stay home.
The interesting thing to watch here is who stays home.
Who killed the Debt Deal? (March 2012):
And yet the failed attempt at a grand bargain wasn’t necessarily an unmitigated disaster. The ugly, months-long process of trying to avoid a meltdown over the debt ceiling may have further embittered a lot of ordinary Americans, but it also forced policy makers on both sides to wrestle with their own capacity for compromise. For weeks, in both the White House and in the speaker’s office, the most influential aides in the country burrowed into spreadsheets and considered, in unusually specific terms, what kinds of budget cuts and revenue numbers they could live with.
They didn’t get the sprawling deal they were after, but they did produce a serious blueprint for bipartisan reform, a series of confidential memos that left them just a few hundred billion dollars apart. That may sound like real money, and it is, but when you consider that the government can get some $25 billion back just by selling its broadcast spectrum, you begin to understand how bridgeable that difference is. What’s clear now is that the only thing holding Washington back from a meaningful step toward reducing debt and modernizing government isn’t any single policy dilemma, but rather the political dynamic that makes compromise such a mortal risk.
That dynamic could change after November. And however counterintuitive this may seem, it may be more apt to change if the cast of characters remains the same.
Notice the increase in “seminar callers?”
Romney’s pick was brilliant! And, he played the media well, too. Since it took everyone by surprise. (Which shows ya, the Romney team is better at keeping secrets.)
Even Romney’s quote in Israel, where he said “it’s a matter of culture.” Because you can measure economic success versus economic failure.
Plus, no soldier ever went to war so that abortions would be free. And, the same can be said for gay marriage. It’s an agenda that’s been foisted up because the democrats thought there would be no opposition.
It is the silent majority who are gonna be casting the votes needed to win.
IF the democrats were hoping they’d keep the Eastern seaboard … while maybe losing one of the Carolina’s, are now looking at how the battlefronts have shifted.
Just like Carville said back in 1992 (when the elder Bush couldn’t claim a 2nd term): “It’s the Economy, Stupid.”
Yes. It is!
By the way, Ryan (elected 7 times to his House seat), does fabulously well with the elderly! And, his district, in Madison, Wisconsin, is thought of as being in “democratic territory.” Plus? Add in that Scott Walker is also a republican. If Romney gets Wisconsin? That’s 10 electoral college votes right there.
Now? The race has become exciting!
Back in 2006, I realized Israel (by not going into Lebanon to clean up the place), had decided that the IDF will only be DEFENSIVE players.
Iran? Separated from Israel by quite a distance. Do you know how many hostile countries Israel would have to leap over to reach Iran? Why would they do this? Because the media screams headlines? Well, the media is always screaming headlines against the Israelies.
So the Israelis have learned not to respond. NADA. Even the recent attack, that started in Gaza. And, went into Egypt. And, blew up an entire Egyptian garrison stationed at the border … Didn’t bring on much of a response. Until the terrorists stole two military vehicles. And, headed into Israel. One truck blew up at impact. And, the other “drove” through the open gate. Only to be shot at. (Tank fire? Overhead IAF?) What did you get? A 10 second video. So the media showed it.
And, Hamas (now that Egypt’s sealing up some of their tunnels) is claiming the “whole operation was Israeli.” But Hillary has stepped away from the microphones.
Instead? Hillary’s gone to Turkey. They’re busy taking American money … so they’re not sending flotillas to break through to gaza.
Oh, yes. And, the arab spring. You’ve seen anything good come of this?
Libya? Now lawless.
Assad? Holding on. And, allowing in the russians … to replace the french.
Only a fly on the wall could do these scenes justice.
The line from Tomasky that really jumped out at me was this:
“[Ryan will] talk about the fiscal cliff coming at the end of the year…”
Tomasky (like all of them, I suppose) is either a fool or a knave. Who cares anymore which it is?
Anyone even remotely acquainted with the Ryan budget (“Path to Prosperity”) knows that it addresses the really big, long term budget issues. This year’s “fiscal cliff” is just another distraction. If Romney wins and Repubs take the Senate, the “fiscal cliff” can be easily avoided with a temporary fix in the lame duck session or, if necessary, retroactively by the new President and Congress.
josh@98
The common goal of socialists and communists is to rule all of us through coercion; (enforced political correctness anyone?) The difference is that socialists give us a chance to voluntarily submit to their rule. If we do not volunteer then they will use coercion. Communists, being more practical, go straight to coercion.
Here’s an attempt to explain the Ryan Budget (“Path to Prosperity”) in as few words as possible. Wish me luck.
1. In general, the Feds spend (and waste) too much money. But we are (were?) a big rich country that can handle this sort of nonsense.
2. The real fiscal problem is the health entitlements of Medicare and Medicaid. (Social Security is actually a pretty easy fix and is not even mentioned in Ryan’s plan.) However, Medicare and Medicaid will sink us within ?? years if not reformed.
3. The guts of the Ryan plan is to reform Medicare and Medicaid long before ?? years arrive. The sooner these programs are reformed, the better. Each year that goes by makes the necessary changes more painful and maybe too little, too late to save us. BTW – the proposed changes to Medicare only apply to people younger than 55. Granny is not going over the cliff.
4. With Medicare and Medicaid no longer sinking the ship, we can go back to “normal” fights about roads, National Parks, aircraft carriers, assorted boondoggles, etc.
“Ride right through them, they’re demoralized as Hell!” And what better to ride through them than a Hellcat.
John @ 101, I sure hope you are right.
For too many years, conventional Institutional Republicans in Congress have only used plays out of the Socialist Lite playbook. That crap has got to stop.
The fundamental problem is a government that has grown way too big, too powerful and too intrusive. Tinkering around the edges, like Romney has always preferred, just won’t cut it.
And neither Romney nor Ryan has come out for cleaning up the rampant criminal cronyism of Wall Street.
Our economy is spiraling slowly down to a debt trap death, and we are close to the point where we may be too far gone. Kudos for Ryan for trying to at least fix the situation. But at this point, I think we must go for a radical Free Market treatment, and get the guvmint out of the way and let the economy heal the free market way.
#81 RWE
The F6F was designed specifically to defeat the Zero. We had some technical information from 3 captured crashed [non-flyable] examples [at Darwin, Australia, New Guinea, and China] but the second great result of the Battle of Midway was the capture intact of a Zero flown by Petty Officer 1C Tadayoshi Koga at Akutan Island in the Aleutians. Koga was part of the air strike on Dutch Harbor by the Japanese Northern Force, flying off of the carrier Ryuho. His plane was damaged by ground fire, and he attempted a landing on muskeg at Akutan. His neck was broken when his plane flipped, but the plane was intact and recovered when it was found a month later. It was repaired, flown, and flight tested, with the Hellcat designed with the help of the data. Yes, I am a military history geek.
#102 weo
I do not consider Romney to be a “stealth conservative” or a conservative at all. He is an Institutional Republican. But he is one that unlike McCain, may actually want to win. I will vote for Romney, not because he is a conservative, not because he is TEA Party; but because he is not actively working to destroy the country and Constitution as Obama is. Do I expect him to reverse what Obama has done? Not really. He might help though, and there is a chance that he will not keep attacking the Constitution. This is but the first stage of what will be a generation long fight to Restore America.
If we are still using Pacific War analogies; 2010 was Coral Sea; an essentially defensive victory. We held the line. Boehner had/has no interest in pushing back, like the good Institutional he is. May whatever Deity is turning the crank this week grant that we have elections in November, and that they will be the equivalent of Midway for us; breaking the power of the Democrats’ Kido Butai and setting us up for the long march to destroy them, outpost by outpost.
Romney is not our Spruance, let alone Nimitz or Halsey. Maybe he is our Fletcher, who ended up commanding the Northwest Sea Frontier from November 1942 on. I do note that Fletcher did get the Medal of Honor early in his career, but that was based not on naval battle, but on evacuating civilians during the Occupation of Veracruz, Mexico in 1914.
Romney is not my leader, or the leader of the TEA Party/Patriot Movement. But he can damage our common enemy; each of us having our own motivations.
I probably won’t make it that long, but if I can live long enough to see Operation DOWNFALL, or its equivalent …
Subotai Bahadur
96 @Conrad
A Simpson-Bowles type approach, combining spending cuts and tax increases, is the only way out of the budget mess. Why that will never happen?
Because your buddies, the Dems, have been too chickenshit to pass a budget in nearly four years now. Easy for you to chuck rocks from your glass house, eh?
Well the Romney/Ryan campaign is now up to 3.8 million dollars of contributions since the announcement.
Another thing is the coat tails effect on the down ticket races of the RR ticket.
Due to primary wins a significant number of Republican candidates are non-Rinos. So when the first address to a joint session of Congress is down there will be a lot of fiscal conservatives showing feral grins to whoever addresses them. Now the role of the Vise President is regarded as a very low power position and most Vise Presidents only show up to break a tie vote, he does have the power to show up and speak. That presents a possibility for a bully pulpit for Ryan.
Does It Matter that Paul Ryan Is on the GOP Ticket? August 11, 2012 by Dan Mitchell
http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/does-it-matter-that-paul-ryan-is-on-the-gop-ticket/
stevesmith @ 13 said:
“I think the Realclearpolitics average of the polls is as close to the truth as one can get before the November election reveals the true truth.”
I am inclined to believe the Realclearpolitics average polls. Historically, they’ve been very close to predicting final election outcomes. Having said that, the current average for Obama’s job approval is difficult to understand, refer to:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html
Obama averages at -0.8% but is getting crushed with Gallup at -7% and Rasmussen at -8%. Gallup and Rasmussen are both well established and reliable political polls. The Democracy Corps (D) gives Obama +4%. However Democracy Corps has a long history of bias and is unreliable. I do not understand why Realclearpolitics assigns any weighting to the Democracy Corps polls when making their averages.
Wretchard said:
“Should Romney have chosen an ethnic candidate to play the ethnic game? Or a woman to play the gender game? Even though they might be qualified for the job? Or has Mitt Romney understood the essentials and showed up with an F6F Hellcat where Tomasky was expecting an F4F Wildcat to emerge from the clouds?”
If I had made the VP choice, I would have selected Condoleezza Rice. That would have nullified Obama’s frequent use of the “racism” gambit. However Rice is an administrator and not a politician. Ryan maybe a better choice than Rice. Ryan is probably a better debater than Rice (the VP’s main political function is to engage in political debate). Also, Ryan is probably better at dealing with MSM hyenas who will do everything they can for Obama.
We conservatives need to be very careful about the “echo chamber” and confirmation bias. Right now, Obama is winning this election. Romney is a very weak candidate and it’s unfortunate that he won the primary election. Fortunately, Obama appears to be peaking too soon in terms of his campaign funding. Also Romney appears to be keeping his powder dry until after the Republican convention. This shows good planning on the part of Romney. The hard truth is that Obama’s popularity scales with the public perception of the economy. The Fed/PPT have done a remarkable job of propping up the stock market via HFT hidden market manipulation through money printing (illegal, unethical and unwise IMHO). Can the Fed/PPT keep this up until November? Something happened in the fall of 2008 that caused market implosion despite the Fed/PPT doing everything they could to prop up a rotten economy. That market implosion doomed McCain’s campaign for President. Will history repeat itself? Also, Obama always has the option of playing with the Iranians. Americans instinctively rally around the President during time of crisis. Obama is a classical demagogue. Launching a false flag gambit would be entirely consistent with Obama being a demagogue.
People say the Vought F4U Corsair was the best prop driven fighter plane in WW-II. Chuck Yeager has said the P-51 Mustang was the best. The P-38 Lightning had the best performance record (a phenomenal number of kills). However the P-38 had many critics including Chuck Yeager who sneered at it as a variation on the Bf-110 (meat on the table). I like the P-38. However I’m biased because I’m a Kelly Johnson fan.
Aside from the important practical existential considerations outlined in Wretchard’s post and in comments, I’m really digging the marketing aspects of the Romney-Ryan ticket.
America could use some R&R
Romney representing a much needed rest from the headlong descent into the democrat’s abyss, and Ryan representing rehabilitation, respite, and maybe even the beginnings of restoration.
@blert 31.
Thanks for that! I remembered Milton Friedman wrote an article with Schwartz about the Crime of 73 and it sent me to find the article. Very prescient to today’s climate of BS.
@51, SB.
Quite true in what you wrote. The very sad fact is the level of ignorance could be the lever to Teh Won’s reelection.
@69, Buanadha.
EXACTLY! We want steak! rib eye! NO MORE SAUSAGE!
Eggplant @ 113 said:
“stevesmith @ 13 said:
“I think the Realclearpolitics average of the polls is as close to the truth as one can get before the November election reveals the true truth.””
I read Real Clear Politics on a daily basis. I am skeptical of their averaging of the polls, simply because when you mix bullshit and data, you get something less than unpolluted data. (Ms. Rand used the example of mixing food and poison. Not so much true, since dosage often determines toxicity, while bullshit is consistently bullshit.)
I think that both camps have internal polls, whispered to them by trusted minions, that do NOT get released to the media.
We know that politicians lie, and the the media is complicit in the process, but we don’t know if they are lying at any given moment. Well, we probably have a pretty good idea: it’s when their lips are moving. Of course, in their defense, many of them honestly believe that “We can’t handle the Truth.”
There are notable exceptions, but it’s the 95% of politicritters that give a bad reputation to the other 5%.
The public polls are only useful to show trends, not absolute percentages, except in the broadest manner.
God save these United States.
erc rodson @ 120:
Again, beware of the echo chamber. Remember how the Supreme Court’s ruling against Obamacare was a sure-thing. Obama is a terrible President and should be getting crushed in the opinion polls. However the polls are what they are and not what we want them to be. I’m hoping that Romney/Ryan will change things after the Republican convention. Right now, the nation is in Serious Trouble because Obama is winning.
Subotai #113:
The F6F first flew on 26 June 1942. Therefore, it was designed and built well before Koga’s Zero was captured in the Aleutians in June of 1942 or for that matter, before we even knew what a Zero was.
But based on the combat experience against the Zero they yanked the original R-2600 engine (same as used in the TBF and SB2C) and put in a 2 stage supercharged R-2800, same as used in the F4U. And most histories say that as a result of the Koga Zero they reduced the weight in the F6F as much as possible. This is nonsense – the R-2800 weighed 500 lb more than the R-2600 but put out 500 more HP, and at a higher altitude as well.
And subsequent research has found that Saki was shot up by SBD’s. There were no TBF’s flying in that area on that day.
As to which WWII fighter was “best” – none were. Depended on what you were doing, what the requirements of the theater were, and what the opposition was. The P-51 had a lot going for it, not the least of which was it was the cheapest and easiest to build of all of them, and among the easiest to fly. The Hellcat was the easiest to fly of all. The P-51’s “secret to success” is that it had the smallest first rate front-line fighter engine of the war.
F6F Hellcat – the bane of the Zero…
Biden must be pulling out his plugs.
When you see a business struggling like America seems to be, there are usually bidders for control of it whose intent falls in two directions: run it as a cash cow while it continues to decline and liquidate the assets and prop up the share prices by methods like laying off workers and closing plants in order to make the balance sheets look better. Remember “Chainsaw Al” Dunlap?
The other approach is to cut unnecessary costs, make better investments, become more efficient and focus on your core mission. This was the Bain Way, along with supplying new investment, rebuilding on the basic strengths of the enterprise and strengthening it by returning to its founding principles.
The question for the voters this Fall is whether they want to liquidate the U.S. to prop up the welfare state, which has never been run properly, by raising taxes, and raising handouts to those who don’t contribute, even as we denounce those who do and demand higher taxes on them; or whether we are willing to tighten our belts, sacrifice, work harder, demand less from the government and do more for ourselves and quit rewarding politicians who promise programs funded by taxing others.
I see Obama/Biden as the first type and Romney/Ryan as the second.
Who Killed the Debt Deal?
And yet, in the end, while both leaders had profound reservations about a grand bargain that would threaten their parties’ priorities, what’s undeniable, despite all the furious efforts to peddle a different story, is that Obama managed to persuade his closest allies to sign off on what he wanted them to do, and Boehner didn’t, or couldn’t. While Democratic leaders were willing to swallow either a deal with more revenue or a deal with less, Boehner’s theoretical counteroffer, which probably reflected what he would have done if empowered to act alone, never even got a hearing from his leadership team.
The new priority in Washington is ideological loyalty. Even the rhetoric sounds like a bodice-ripping romance novel written for and by politicians.
RE: liquidate the U.S. to prop up the welfare state
Agreed. Corporate subsidies are approaching criminal levels. And GE still has trouble paying taxes.
The best comparison would be between the P40 and the A6M Zero.
First of all the MSM has been in the bag for Obama, even now when he has proven to be a loser, so I don’t expect any truth forthcoming in poll results. Second, in keeping with the aerial warfare theme, based on the amount of flak they are receiving they must be over the target and considered a threat. The unusual amount of troll traffic here on BC bears this out.(you with the names no one knows as well as the known liberals).
Romney and Ryan are both extremely hard working individuals where Obama and Biden are phone-it-in types. Regarding Romney’s lack of aggression, I think it is very smart. The modern news cycle is counted in seconds, not days. Many people are tuned out over the summer anyway, on vacations. With the ticket confirmed and the GOP convention a scant three weeks away I expect a full-court press forthcoming. You want people invigorated, not overexposed.
I believe it will be a landslide GOP win because real people understand how very bad life has become under Obama and they want real improvement. The old platitudes are not going to cut it this time. I have faith in the overall power of self-interest.
Speakeasy,
FYI: Wretchard got an instalaunch for this post. That might explain some of the new faces here.
I love the expression “Government Cheese” for welfare. But shouldn’t it more correctly be called “Gubbiment Cheese?”
Oh my, Carol is back (107). Wrong thread though, Carol.
#92, lol, love when “street” reality dictates the paving, hope for a massive dose of the same when R-R are inaugurated.
#127, yeah, the old, slow, obsolete P-40s did a lot of donating rising sun metal to the Jap scrap needs in AVG territory, still a good record even after the adjusted figures.
Hoping that R-R continue to propose the best anti-Progressive program since RR.
It will be fascinating to watch Palin and R-R etc. take a harbor dredge to the assumptive sands beneath the “philosophical foundations” of Progressivism.
The conventional wisdom has been quite wrong recently on a number of non-political things that have political implications. The media is portraying a world that may be very different in reality and doing themselves and the Dems no favors by distorting what’s really going on out there.
Several examples come to mind- the predictable “guns are bad” meme that rose again with the shootings in Denver, and which was summarily shrugged off by the population in general; the huge groundswell of support for Dan Cathy’s right to speak his mind whether we agreed with his sentiments or not; and Susan G. Komen’s swift fall in donations after they revealed that they donated to Planned Parenthood, resulting in the resignation of their top two executives this week. On that one, the media are still spinning, but the people have spoken with their pocketbooks.
ALl of these things took the “inside the Beltway” bunch by surprise. I have a feeling more is coming.
RWE @ 122 said:
“As to which WWII fighter was “best” – none were. Depended on what you were doing, what the requirements of the theater were, and what the opposition was. … The P-51’s “secret to success” is that it had the smallest first rate front-line fighter engine of the war.”
Chuck Yeager would say “It’s the man and not the machine”. That was arguably true with the MiG-15 versus the F-86 in the Korean War, i.e. the MiG-15 was a slightly better plane than the F-86 (except for the F-86′s gun targeting system) but we had better pilots. It’s well known that the secret of the P-51′s success was the British designed Merlin engine that replaced the originally specified Allison V-1710. Air cooled radial engines such as used in the Corsair are intrinsically more draggy than in-line liquid cooled engines that were used in the P-51 and P-38. The P-38′s secret to success was having radar and being used as a night time fighter. Supposedly by using its night time radar, the P-38 could sneak up behind the Zero and blast it out of the sky before the Zero’s pilot knew the P-38 was there.
The Merlin engine was SMALLER in displacement than the Allison (1643 versus 1710 cu in – note: even the Zero had 1700 cu in!) used in the early Mustangs. But (Sir) Stanley Hooker came up with a two stage supercharger design that used the supercharger from a failed much larger engine, combined with a piece of simple and obvious engineering brillance that no one else copied for some unaccountable reason, and made the Merlin 60 and later series perform like a much bigger engine – but able to fit into a smaller airframe – and while not using nearly as much gas.
By 1941 the Brits had given up on the Merlin as a fighter engine, focusing on the Sabre, Centarus and the larger RR engines. Then they needed a back-up engine for a counter to what proved to be a useless German innovation. And then, faced with the FW-190, they realzied they could cram the two stage Merlin into a Spitfire which then led to putting into a Mustang.
The P-38 used turbosuperchargers on its V-1710′s – the US approach to doing what Hooker did with the Merlin. It could fly so much higher and faster than any Japanese aircraft that it was all but untouchable, in the unlikely event that the Japanese saw it coming at all. Only a very few P-38′s were radar equipped night fighters, a couple of modified P-38F’s on Guadacanal and some very late war P-38M’s.
The Mig-15 could fly higher than the F-86 due to its lighter weight, but that was its only advantage. The F-86 was faster, more maneuverable, and as Chuck Yeager himself proved, could even crack the sound barrier in a dive, which the Mig could not.
#130 Jay Whiz
While I was in school in Alabama in the 60′s, I had a roommate, from Selma, that pronounced it “Feral Gubmit”. I always thought that that had a certain ring to it!
#135
Thirty years ago, I had a friend that flew P-38′s in WWII. He said that they were taught that if a Zero got behind them, they should pull up and right as hard as they could – and the Zero couldn’t follow. Something about the torque of the single engine in the Zero.
He later got shot up by some ground fire. He pulled it up, got it over the water, turned it on its side (as he said he was taught) and bailed out. One of the rear “tails” got him right in the cheek. He said he didn’t remember a thing before waking up in the hospital some time later. He got a new face out of it. He said he looked better after the accident.
Up until now, the Tea Party folk had been very lukewarm about all the GOP candidates. They had no candidate that excited them. Romney was a flip-flopper and Obamacare was the bastard offspring of Romneycare. Santorum was a big-government conservative and anti-free market. Bachmann was a light-weight. Perry flamed out. Gingrich carried too much baggage. Palin didn’t run.
But the Tea Party of 2010 wasn’t sleeping; it was organizing. The impact was seen in GOP primaries where vulnerable RINOs got picked off. It was also seen in Wisconsin. A lot of Tea Party money and people went into that campaign in support of Walker. The focus for 2012 was to be getting more fiscal conservatives into the House and Senate.
Tea Party folk were resigned Romney making a bland choice like Pawlenty or Portman, although I know some Tea Party organizers in Ohio were actively campaigning against Portman getting the nod.
But, Romney started performing better. His campaign showed some fight, in marked contrast to the McCain campaign. And he made a bold choice in going with Ryan. The three core Tea Party values are “Constitutionally limited government, fiscal responsibility, and free markets”. Ryan lines up pretty well with those values, and Romney’s choice shows he is willing to run on fiscal responsibility. This will generate a lot of momentum for Romney going into the home stretch. The 2010 mid-terms were just a foretaste of the 2012 event.
It is not that Romney will come to the battle with the F6F Hellcat; he’ll come to the battle with far than Zero has Zeroes..
BTW, big Tea Party event coming up in Cleveland to protest the MSM’s abysmal coverage of Occupy Cleveland’s attempt to blow up a major bridge in Cleveland.
http://networkedblogs.com/AVrxh
“America’s Comeback Team!”
That’s a slogan that says something useful and believable.
Romney showed that he’s serious about attacking the problems of the federal government in picking Ryan. Yes, there are risks here – can we trust the voters to look the big problem squarely in the eye as adults? If not, we keep digging our own grave as a nation.
Romney has shown a strong dose of serious political pragmatism over his career. You do what you can if you can’t realistically acheive what you desire. That’s a good manager at work. Ryan is a man who also wants what’s acheivable.
I’m very pleased with Romney. It shows he’s willing to fight and to risk, my bottom line criterion for a Republican political leader.
Didn’t Ronald Reagan star in “Hellcats of the Navy”? (Albeit about submariners.)