Posted on 08/13/2012 12:47:11 PM PDT by jazusamo
Governor Mitt Romney's choice of Congressman Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate is one of those decisions that seem obvious — if not inevitable — in retrospect, even though it was by no means obvious to most of us beforehand.
Anyone who wants to get a quick sense of who Paul Ryan is should watch a short video of a February 2010 meeting in which Congressman Ryan politely, but devastatingly, "schools" Barack Obama on the utter fraudulence of the statistics that the Obama administration was using to claim that ObamaCare would reduce the deficit. That video is available on the Drudge Report.
As a long-time member, and now chairman, of the Budget Committee in the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan is thoroughly familiar with both the facts and the fictions in the federal government's budget. In recent years, the fictions have grown much bigger than the facts. But, as Congressman Ryan reminded the president, hiding spending is not the same as reducing spending.
If this year's election is going to be decided on the basis of hard facts, the Obama administration is doomed. But the Obama campaign is well aware of that, which is why we are hearing so many distracting innuendoes and outright lies about such peripheral issues as what Mitt Romney is supposed to have done while running Bain Capital — or even what is supposed to have happened at Bain Capital, years after Mitt Romney was long gone.
The Obama campaign's big smear, about how Romney is supposed to have caused a woman to die of cancer, has been exposed as a lie by CNN, hardly a Republican network. What smears like this show is that the Obama administration cannot run on its track record, so it has to run on distractions from country's real problems.
(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...
While success is certainly not guaranteed - it is almost certain that if Romney is elected Ryan will have his chance to seek the GOP nomination - will have a leg up on his competitors - and if he wins the nomination he may or may not prevail against the Democrap nominee.
The fact is that he will hardly be inconsequential IF Romney wins election. He will have a rather good chance to seek and possibly win (or ascend to) the most powerful elected position in the World.
okay ... was necessary point to make. Observations ... observations ... observations. That point is a fact, and was not an opinion. I'll digress.
A “Mourning in America” ad would be BRILLIANT - where things like the debt, the loss of the Middle East, the continued rise of Iran, etc. would be discussed - not to mention the unemployment rate. Thank you Dr. Sowell.
Oops...forgot Martin Van Buren...Make that 14, with five elected.
My only point was that VPs are very rarely elected while serving, and even more rarely elected after some intervening period of time (Nixon is the only one.)
The first two sitting VPs to be elected President (Adams and Jefferson) had only been Vice President because at the time, the runner-up in the Presidential election held the office. They are really not comparable to modern VPs.
Ryan might well be elected president one day, but history suggests that, at a minimum, he will need Romney to be a very successful and popular President.
And if you want to talk about losing VP candidates who later become president - let’s just say that list is considerably shorter...
Thomas Sowell is such a sterling gentleman in addition to being so wise and learned. One of my favorite moments of guest hosts on El Rushbo’s program is when Dr. Walter E. Williams subs for Rush and gets Dr. Sowell on the line, and they discuss current events in the world of economics.
Sowell nails it. Obama will run a very ugly campaign, because his record is an abject failure.
My apologies. I should have read down and seen if the video had already been posted.
So working the odds and assuming a 50% chance of each; that is still only a 12.5% chance of Ryan ever being elected President.
So while this is certainly NOT a surefire path to the Presidency - it is almost certainly going to raise his prominence within the party and lead to bigger and better things for both him AND the party than being one vote in Congress.
So if this is some vast (pseudo) right wing conspiracy to remove Ryan from prominence and/or power - it doesn't seem to be a very intelligent one.
The day Romney named Ryan as his running mate I called Ryan/Walker, Ryan/West or Ryan Palin.
Place your bets.
2016 or more likely 2020 if Romney is not awful.
LOL I had not heard that but I like it!
Excellent.
This is the Doctor’s official Uncle Tom moment. The enemies of Personal Responsibility will not be happy. He couldn’t have been any more clear.
He will be seriously denigrated from this moment forward
Quite possibly true but I'd bet Dr. Sowell will not lose one minutes sleep over that denigration. :-)
I wish I could take credit for that joke, but someone smarter than me came up with it.
Still - it’s very, very true.
WOW a whole lot of bitch and whine about bitch and whine.
I had the same skeptical reaction to Romney when I heard about his selection. Any "talking points" must be traveling via some sort of telepathy, and be using some "Tokyo Rose" distribution list I'm not familiar-- and certainly didn't know I belonged to.
The Benedict Arnold wing of the Conservative movement bitch and whine about the GOP-e when they DON'T pick a Conservative, then they bitch and whine when they do!
I have no particular loyalty to the GOP party. I'm a conservative. Historically, that means that I'm more closely aligned with the GOP-- but that alignment has become more and more questionable.
I don't bitch and whine when a conservative is selected for president, I bitch and whine when a liberal is selected for president, and then selects a conservative as vice president, especially when it potentially side-lines and neuters that outstanding conservative for at least four years.
Vice Presidents, overall, have not much impact on the national discussion, nor with policy making and, where they disagree with the President, you hardly hear about them at all. Cheney was an exception to this, because President Bush used him as a mentor and a senior advisor, and trusted him to carry on the message.
Given Ryan's grasp of economics and policy, and based on Romney's differing views, it seems much more likely to me that Romney wants to control someone who would otherwise be making trouble for him in Congress.
Pardon me (and others) for being cynical about someone we view as Obama-lite. That doesn't make us traitors to the party or the movement-- and it certainly isn't making the same argument that the other side is.
I'll be pulling the lever for Romney in November. I'm getting REALLY TIRED of having to vote for a strong Vice President instead of a President.
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