Their names have not been on the ballot since 1944 and 1964. FDR died in 1945 and LBJ in 1973 but the ghosts of democrat presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson are impacting the 2012 presidential election campaign with such magnitude that they both might as well be on the ballot themselves. The great entitlement legacies of these two mid- 20th century presidents, i.e., FDR’s Social Security and LBJ’s Medicare are now center stage after Mitt Romney named Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan to be his running mate. Both programs having been left virtually unchanged since their inception decades ago, and are now at the root of a fiscal crisis so catastrophic that our economic solvency and super-power status as a nation are genuinely threatened.
But all I hear on the news these days is anger directed at Paul Ryan by voters screaming, “Don’t take away our Medicare” or rally signs reading, “Ryan means Social Security cuts” and talking heads saying, “Ryan is going to fundamentally change Medicare as we know it.”
Where is Romney in all this? Within a few days after announcing the Ryan VP choice, he has become the ever- shrinking front-runner eclipsed by a running mate who is accused by Team Obama and their cohorts in the mainstream media of trying to undermine the entitlement programs left by FDR and LBJ. The race has now become “All Ryan all the time” and Romney’s candidacy has been reduced to nothing more than “Paul Ryan’s plan.”
Simply because Paul Ryan’s budget plan is complicated and will be totally exploited by the Obama campaign, masters of playing on the fears of average Americans — I fear that Romney’s bold choice of selecting Ryan is going to hurt the Romney-Ryan ticket especially with voters who feel the most vulnerable and threatened by any program changes.
This is not good news for Romney, Ryan or their election prospects. It is very difficult to change or even talk about changing entitlement programs that have come to represent the very fabric of America’s social safety net. Facts are not important in any of these arguments. The Obama talking points are all laced with pure emotion because the facts and the numbers of Ryan’s plan are too complicated to explain in a 30 second sound-bite. This only works to Obama’s advantage. Team Obama is chomping at the bit of Ann Romney’s dressage horse to make their case that Paul Ryan’s budget is radical, dangerous, and hurts all of us but especially those who need it most.
These arguments are tailor made for 30 seconds or less. FDR and LBJ will be on the ballot this November, right along side Obama-Biden and Romney- Ryan and that is bad news for all Republicans down the ballot. No matter how devastating the FDR and LBJ programs are to our present and future economy, a majority of Americans will not listen because there is a maxim that overshadows the coming economic tsunami.
Once government gives benefits, government can not take them away.
Slogans are what you make of them.
If R/R say “We are saving social security from Obama!”, that’s easy enough to remember and understand.
“The Democrats are screwing you over” is easy to understand.
You just have to say it.
Perhaps. That is tuff question although. I know Romney and Ryan can beat Obama and Biden although.
http://silverliberationarmy.blogspot.ca/
Barack Hussein Obama is following in the footsteps of the lowest of low lives Lyndon Baines Johnson. In a Texas race he thought he might lose, LBJ instructed his campaign staff to put out a story that his opponent was once caught having sexual relations with a pig (an actual pig, not Nancy Pelosi). One of his staff said, “But that’s not true,” LBJ replied, “But let him deny it.”
Dear Myra,
Your thoughts make me think you might be a closet Democrat. It sounds as if you, as the Democrats do, believe in the fundamental stupidity of the American public.
You couldn’t be more wrong, Myra. Any politician who refuses to address entitlements is a huckster, and everyone knows it. Everyone.
Honestly, I think this is a large portion of what Romney was thinking. Remember that the Democrats were already connecting him with the Ryan budget since he endorsed it in the primary. The phrase “Romney-Ryan” had been used to describe the budget for months.
When people hear Ryan explain his entitlement reform plan, they begin to like it. Putting Ryan on the ticket, among other things, guarantees that he’ll get a platform to explain it. Romney would be connected to it either way, so why not bring in its most effective spokesman?
Returning to making comments at pj after desisting for a couple of months, I’m struck by the disappearance of Republican comments that make some effort to respond to Myra’s very real concerns. She’s right! Ryan does make it more difficult for Romney and for Republican congressional candidates.
Selecting Paul Ryan was, in my view, a desperation tactic by a candidate who was never the true choice of the Republican Party as a whole (just last man standing because he has the most money). That party is in total disarray this cycle and reason why the A team(Christie, Jeb, perhaps others) decided to sit it out until the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Santorum et al go back to what they were — influential but not in charge of the Republican image.
The one candidate who could have helped Romney gain votes is Governor Huckabee. He has the gravitas of having governed a state, a populist personality like Christie but WITHOUT Christie’s truculence, and the only far right pro-life candidate who comes across as a human being. But, I understand, Huckabee is one of several candidates in that brutal Republican primary debate process, who ended up disliking Romney. He wouldn’t run with Romney if asked.
Santorum, another participant in that primary process, has set Ryan/Romney up for yet another no-win divisive issue for the Republican Party can’t win. Remember Rick declaring he became “physically ill” (I think that was the phrase) when hearing John Kennedy’s comments on Catholicism vis a vis the presidency?
Inevitably, now with both VP candidates Catholic, the question will be raised– Are you a Santorum Catholic or a Kennedy Catholic?
There are 3 issues which have been treated as “settled law” that this round of Republican candidates has brought back in all their unsolvable divisiveness. The existence and justification for Medicare, an abortion law that has had the approval of the Supreme Court, and now the question that in the 60s was raised when Kennedy ran for the presidency — can a Catholic be true to his faith and the U.S. constitution, as president, at the same time?
I say “unsolvable divisiveness” because they are so for EXTREMISTS on both sides of each issue. Like eveything in America that makes our existence as a country possible — intransigents on these issues CAN’T HAVE WHAT THEY WANT. Compromise (such a dirty word to the intransigents) IS the only way out.
I just heard somebody on the all-night Catholic station comment Obama should be barred from this year’s Al Smith fundraiser!!!! Now that’s a settled tradition that goes back to the 30s for God’s sake–the joint Republican/Democratic fundraiser honoring Al Smith, a Catholic who ran for but failed to become the Democratic presidential candidate as Kennedy would do by the 60s.
Where oh where is the end of all this??
I awake to a beautiful pink sky in the east this morning but something has happened at the fairgrounds! I see that ambulances and firetrucks have arrived to tend to a rash of hot air balloon crashes! France,Spain,Italy and Greece were in some sort of race piloted by Captains with an Acapulco cliff divers mind set. The radio just said that they had no engines but provided the hot air themselves! Unbelievable!! That it was really a race to see who could blow enough hot air into the balloons before they popped!
Spend,print,bailout cronies and spend even more until the US dollar is zimbucks.
That’s the change 4 more years will bring, Believe…
I am tired of hearing that seniors are threatened by attacks on Medicare and SS. I am in that category and I personally don’t care to see either program continue to be foisted upon Americans. If Americans are free then they should have free choices. I wanted a choice about whether I had to pay into SS and Medicare, instead money was stolen from me through my employers at times when I needed every cent I earned. I signed up for SS only to get that back and to help bankrupt this corruption. After I turned 65 my health savings account was cancelled due to Medicare regs. Why is our federal government so afraid of allowing people free choice. It seems the only choice people are allowed to have, and then only half the people, is whether or not to allow a baby to live.
You might want to stick to worrying about whether or not to put a Romney bumper sticker on your car.