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Subscribe to RSSWith all signs pointing to Mitt Romney selecting Paul Ryan as his VP running mate tomorrow in Norfolk, VA, Romney went bold. And here is First Read's looks at the strengths and weaknesses Ryan would bring the GOP presidential ticket.
Strengths:
- As chairman of the House Budget Committee, the 42-year-old Ryan is a young rising star in the GOP, and has become their chief spokesman when it comes to reducing the deficit and debt.
- Romney picking Ryan as his running mate would signal that he’s doubling down on an austerity/deficit-reduction message. Indeed, while the Obama campaign and Democrats could point to visible improvements with the economy over the past three years (a lower unemployment rate, stronger GDP growth), there hasn’t been much progress in reducing the deficit. The deficit was $1.4 trillion in FY ’09; $1.3 trillion in ’10; $1.5 trillion in ’11 (projected); and $1.1 trillion in ’12 (projected).
- Ryan hails from a battleground state -- Wisconsin -- where polls show Romney currently trailing Obama. Obama actually won Ryan’s district in 2008, 51%-47%.
- Comfort level: When Romney campaigned with Ryan in the lead-up to the April 3 Wisconsin primary, the two men demonstrated a rapport that we haven’t seen with other Romney surrogates.
- He would be a person who could please both the conservative intelligentsia and the Tea Party base.
Weaknesses:
- Ryan’s budget plan has become a lightning rod, and it will be a focus of Democratic attacks in the fall. The most controversial component of the plan is that it significantly transforms Medicare, which is regarded as the government’s most popular program.
- In addition to Medicare, Ryan was one of the driving forces to partially privatize Social Security after George W. Bush’s victory in the 2004 presidential election.
- There are also holes in Ryan’s budget-hawk armor: He voted for some of the biggest drivers of the deficit/debt -- the Bush tax cuts, the Iraq war, and the Medicare prescription-drug benefit, all of which weren’t paid for. Moreover, Ryan voted against the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles recommendations.
- Has never held statewide office and has no foreign-policy experience. Both could be liabilities.
- As a member of Congress, Ryan currently works in -- and is a relatively high-profile member of -- one of America’s least popular institutions.
- And while Romney has criticized Obama for not having private-sector experience, the same is largely true of Ryan: As the New Yorker has written, Ryan briefly worked for his family’s business as a “marketing consultant,” but most of his adult life has been spent as a congressman, congressional aide, or speechwriter/analyst at Jack Kemp’s Empower America think tank.
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By selecting Paul Ryan to co-head the top of the GOP ticket...Splitt Romney has now officially committed political suicide!!! Upon this motion, the ReSuckican Party has presently lost the state of Florida where many seniors reside. The attempt to eliminate what ReSucks have termed "entitlement programs" has now become the sword which will be wielded to chop off the head of the dragons who have launched a war on the elderly. Seniors routinely as well as overwhelming support policy that does not do away with those benefits which keeps them healthy and alive! It is simply too much to ask the elderly population to sacrifice!
It is ludacris to wish upon a star that the elderly of FL won't notice what the Ryan Budget will do to them and their much needed Medicare and Medicaid subsidies whereby they do survive. I understand that the premise is; it won't affect current seniors but each generation must concern itself not only with the present but with the future of those who will surely follow should the world continue to turn!
Right on? Right on...
In Re: Social Security. To Mr. Ryan I ask what would your reaction have been back when you were receiving SS benefits because your father passed away and some politician said that YOUR benefits need to be restructured because YOU were getting to much money or YOU were a drain on our country's economy? Oh how we forget and I am including myself in that collective "we".
If Romney is hiding his tax returns, he has something to hide! Ryan has NO real life experience whatsoever, he's a career politician!
I have never seen so many liberal ignorant comments in my entire life. Reading these remarks makes me believe we are all doomed to fail. Come November, think with your brains and not on your emotions.
The ReSuckicans are the ignorant clowns who think they can pull the wool! They are desperately hoping that imbeciles will not be able to sort through the multitude of LIES they have told about everything! Pay attention to Splitt Romney's pejorative speech recently, "Mr President, take your hateful, divisive, rhetoric back to Chicago!" What could be more racist than that? He's trying to use the old standbys like; "all black men are angry black men!" Problem with that LIE? Pres Obama is super cool under pressure! Never have I seen a more peaceful man. Pres Obama's agenda has been all about reaching across the aisle and coming together while the ReSuck's number one agenda has been to ensure that the Pres does not repeat as POTUS!
Did Americans forget or merely overlook the fact that we also have a Congress that we pay to help Pres Obama create jobs and smooth out this rough economy? How is the entire country and economy Barack Obama's problem all by himself? All the GOP leaning House has done is vote 31 times to repeal the AHCA and do all within their power to eliminate women's rights!
BTW: How are things on the planet Zorch these days? Got any glibnoks or spligglies to spend here on earth today?
Right on? right on...