Posted on 09/11/2012 8:13:13 AM PDT by bigbob
Neither Jay Carney nor Romney mentioned Rahm in their respective statements on the strike (Carney punted on the matter altogether, not surprisingly), but Ryan knows a political opportunity when he sees one. In a standoff between two of Obama’s biggest cronies, his former chief of staff and the unions that bankroll him, The One’s going to strain mightily to remain scrupulously neutral. Romney/Ryan’s task: Make that neutrality as uncomfortable as possible.
The only surprise, says National Journal, is that it took the campaign this long to twist the knife.
“If you turned on the TV this morning or sometime today, you probably saw something about the Chicago teacher’s union strike. I’d like to make a couple of comments about that because it does matter. I’ve known Rahm Emanuel for years. He’s a former colleague of mine. Rahm and I have not agreed on every issue or on a lot of issues, but Mayor Emanuel is right today in saying that this teacher’s union strike is unnecessary and wrong. We know that Rahm is not going to support our campaign, but on this issue and this day we stand with Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
“We stand with the children and we stand with the families and the parents of Chicago because education reform, that’s a bipartisan issue. This does not have to divide the two parties. And so, we were going to ask, where does President Obama stand? Does he stand with his former Chief of Staff Mayor Rahm Emanuel, with the children and the parents, or does he stand with the union? On issues like this, we need to speak out and be really clear. In a Romney-Ryan administration we will not be ambiguous, we will stand with education reform, we will champion bipartisan education reforms. This is a critical linchpin to the future of our country, to our economy, to make sure that our children go to the best possible school, and that education reforms revolve around the parents and the child, not the special interest group. This is something that’s critical for all of us.”
Read Ed’s post from this morning if you missed it earlier. The optics of this strike are gruesome for Democrats: You’ve got the best paid teachers in the country, who already take home nearly $30,000 per year more on average than the average Chicago family, walking out on kids in Obama’s own hometown even though a friendly Democratic face in Rahm Emanuel is on the other side of the table. It’s an object lesson in union ruthlessness, and Rahm’s going to have no choice but to dig in lest he illustrate just what the GOP has in mind when it talks about Democrats having been captured by Big Labor. The question is how heavily this might weigh on voters. Last year, when the protests first started raging in Wisconsin, there was sympathy for PEUs. Eighteen months later, Scott Walker’s still governor, public sentiment in Wisconsin has shifted, and the national electorate’s had more time to absorb news stories about California and Greece. If this had happened two weeks ago, rest assured that it would have received ample coverage in Christie’s keynote speech at the convention. As it is, I wonder if Romney will call on him to hit the trail to hammer this issue. Time for an impromptu presser by the big guy somewhere in Chicago?
After all, we're constantly told we need to tax the rich and put more teachers and firefighters and police back to work, so you'd think Obama would be all about getting these teachers back in the classroom...
Great going “Jack Ryan”
LOL
“Paul Ryan: We stand with Mayor Rahm Emanuel against the Chicago teachers’ union”
That’s freakin’ brilliant!
82,981 of 132,502 Illinois Teachers Pay Nothing or Little into Their Pensions
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2701628/posts
Illinois’ credit rating downgraded after pension reform failure
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2924499/posts
Jack Ryan starring in “The Sum of Dem Fears”.
Do not agree one bit with Paul Ryan’s statement.
He can point out what a mess the education system is in democrat controlled Chicago. Huge expenditures, high pay, and yet still most kids can’t read. And even then the teachers strike for more.
But he had zero reason to “stand with Rahm”. Rahm is part of the problem and is part of the Obama machine. Ryan should have stood with the parents and studentss NOT Rahm Emmanuel.
It was not brilliant.
I didn’t get all of the hub bub over “its staged to make Barack look good!”
Ryan’s close friend here in WI destroyed the TU doing what not only needed to be done, but doing it in a slow reasoned way that allowed everyone to understand the crazy costs associated with backing down against them.
Fellow Wisconsinites were aghast when the salaries and benies the TU’s were spotlighted and how much of our taxes were going to it.
Ryan knows this is a winning issue across party lines because only the far left sees no issues with TU’s continuing to provide crap teaching for Cadillac prices.
If they thought this would be a winner for Barry these guys learned nothing for WI 2010-2012. Ryan knows the issues forwards and backwards and will give Romney the necessary education if this comes up in the debates.
I heard the Conservative Party candidate in the UK telling voters that he could run the socialistic National Health Service more efficiently than his liberal opponent could. And so here in the US we have the pitiful public display of an otherwise freedom loving Republican telling the voters that if he was in office, he would run the socialist public education system more efficiently than the Democrats would.
If Ryan is interested in telling the truth, the sad truth is that a public school system that costs over $13k/student/year (not including pro-rated capital costs!) is UNSUSTAINABLE. Indeed, the business model is BROKEN.
At ~$13k, taxpayers in Chicago are paying over $150k to educate a single child to graduation. But it gets worse when you factor in capital costs (easily $1k/year), the drop out rate (>20%?) and the grade level competency rate.
I did the research for the Washington DC public school system and there it costs the taxpayers in EXCESS of $1 million to graduate a single student who is competent in math and science.
We must find better ways, and government is the least capable of doing that. We must give parents vouchers and allow private business to compete for educating our children. I think it is a gross error to allow government to perform that function anyway. It is a horrible conflict of interest and denial of liberty to the parents.
Yep, it’s getting to the point where the only difference between the two parties will be which party is the more effective liberal party.
GOP should now step back and stay out of the fight noting it is all democrats with huge bloated salaries, medical and pensions only worried about their union and move to next issue.
One of our biggest problems is the union mentality, a.k.a. Indentured servitude.
Unions want to control you, own you, and use you in exchange for dollars, mostly going to the union leaders and to prop up politicians like Obama.
Obama is tring to turn America into one giant union, sucking in losers and ne’er-do-wells as their slaves and useful idiots. It’s their groupthink, mob organizing that strikes fear into wimpy politicians and is causing thousands of people and businesses to relocate to right-to-work states.
The herd mentality of their members provide them with the numbers they need to riot and pillage to achieve their goals, local domination, with the ultimate aim of national control of all workers, thus businesses.
Unions are a microcosm of socialism/communism, morlocks...feeding their herd for its eventual slaughter and consumption.
Yep, Ryan is a sharp politician in addition to being a good conservative thinker, and he understands this issue (public employee unions) has the potential to be a wedge issue that can cleave away some Independents who might otherwise fall back into the Obama camp.
As far as the anti-Ryan and anti-Romney rhetoric, everyone is free to exercise their freedom of speech and I hope it makes you feel better to vent. But the reality is now that the next two months have little to do with political ideology, because the vast majority of Americans are not political ideologues. They will be paying attention to those who offer practical solutions and who make sense when they talk about the issues they are facing on a daily basis. And, on this count, we are are fortunate to have Paul Ryan on the ticket. He will be the attack dog (which is great because he gets under Obamas skin) and he will drive issues like this that can pull Independents over.
This place has become nothing but anti R/R speech in a lot of cases.
Paul Ryan doesn’t say a word and they’ll complain bitterly that he hasn’t spoken up.
“Stand with the children and parents?” They’re spending $13K per student in Chicago and 80% of them cannot read at an 8th grade level when they leave.
Ryan IS standing with parents and the children. The TU’s not only bleed the taxpayers of their area of more and more money per year, but their performance is worse!
We heard the same garbage here in WI and it seems that some posters hold the same disregard for those affected by the strike as the TU’s...Ryan and Romney were right to side with Rahm on this.
I know of person who got a check cashing job in WI and they processed the checks for Walker and invariably they were small amount checks with personal pleas for help. The average down on their luck voter knows that the PEUs are perping a scam on the backs of the little guys.
One more thing to add bigbob:
Take a look at the local reports from Chicago papers comments section. People are pissed at the unions and when a supporter shows on comments they’re went after immediately. This is an issue that once people understand what’s going on they get pissed at the unions.
As soon as someone does the “unions are underpaid” comment its immediately responded to with “their salary is almost DOUBLE average Chicago salary” or “spoken like a union hack.” Its an issue that gets clear very quickly. The TU’s will scream about being underpaid and everyone else goes “I wish I was making an average salary the TU’s make along with their benefits!”
What makes me most sure that Ryan did the right thing? My uncle who is a Chicago Democrat through and through is mocking the teachers union on Facebook.
You’re wrong. Ryan’s statement is brilliant.
The teachers union knows they can force Rahm to sue for peace by making this a difficult national issue for Obama at a crucial point in the campaign. The absolute best path to getting everything they want.
Gotta hand it to them, they studied their Alinsky well.
Sorry, Williams, but I think it was indeed brilliant. If Romney and Ryan had sat back and done nothing, they’d have totally allowed Rahm and Obama to play this in a way that would have been beneficial to Obama. There may have actually been a plot to engineer this strike so that Obama could swoop in and save the day, as Limbaugh said yesterday. Now, though, by siding with Emmanuel on this, Romney and Ryan have basically forced Obama to either sit back and do nothing or to side with the teachers union. He really can’t be seen as a “follower” who did something because Romney did it, so he can’t come out against the union position. The union position doesn’t play well with independents, so if he comes out to support the union, he hurts himself with those voters.
I think Obama will sit back and do nothing, and when the strike is ended in a week or two without intervention by Obama, then Romney can run an ad - “When Chicago’s teachers, the most highly paid teachers in the nation, went on strike, leaving hundreds of thousands of children to fend for themselves on the crime-ridden streets of America’s most violent city, President Obama did nothing. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan stood against the unnecessary and destructive actions of the Chicago Teachers Union. Vote for a leader who will take action to ensure that America’s children do not face abandonment by the unions representing the teachers they so desperately need. I’m Mitt Romney and I approved this message.”
Frankly, the teachers’ strike in that city is an extremely local matter and a distraction from other issues which are bad for Obama.
However, I didn’t say they shouldn’t criticize the teachers’ union, the strike, the school system.
I said they had no need to specifically stand with Rahm Emannuel.
I agree with everything you said, and everything Ryan said 1 million percent. I just disagree with supporting Rahm Emmanuel by name. But I could be entirely wrong, maybe it was a brilliant move.
Hands are going to get dirty from time to time... ;)
I understand the POV, but lets trust Ryan on this one. IMO Obama doesn’t want this fight at all.
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