The unofficial Obama and Romney VP speculation thread

[TripletDaddy]

Heh, yeah, sure you did.

I remember Snipe saying that Palin was the democrats worst nightmare.

[myboynoah]

I remember Snipe saying that Palin was the democrats worst nightmare.

She fooled even the very elite.

[TripletDaddy]

She fooled even the very elite.

Tex was in love. Do you guys remember his avatars on CG? He had a Palin avatar as well as a pig with lipstick. He had completely bought it.

It was either Tex or Snipe that claimed that McCain had "played the media like a virtuoso" in making his Palin announcement.

[Babs]

You can start a CUF Greatest Hits thread or create a new CUFfy category. Show some initiative, man.

But would it be Official?

[Moliere]

Lol at anyone thinking a VP choice makes a difference in the final vote tally. This is something that you just don't want to screw up, and Mitt didn't screw it up, at least all evidence points to him not screwing it up. Ryan is well known and has handled the media and Washington insiders for years. He probably also reads newspapers, although maybe not all of them.

[TripletDaddy]

Apparently Tex was so excited about Palin as pick that he started a thread about it being a smart move.

He also derided Obamas late night technology-infused announcement, which is basically what Mitt did this past week.

http://cougarguard.com/forum/showthread.php?p=259169

[myboynoah]

Lol at anyone thinking a VP choice makes a difference in the final vote tally. This is something that you just don't want to screw up, and Mitt didn't screw it up, at least all evidence points to him not screwing it up. Ryan is well known and has handled the media and Washington insiders for years. He probably also reads newspapers, although maybe not all of them.

LOL, he doesn't even read as many newspapers as Palin.

[LA Ute]

Lol at anyone thinking a VP choice makes a difference in the final vote tally. This is something that you just don't want to screw up, and Mitt didn't screw it up, at least all evidence points to him not screwing it up. Ryan is well known and has handled the media and Washington insiders for years. He probably also reads newspapers, although maybe not all of them.

He's good at important things that Mitt's not good at - like giving pithy [edit: and intelligent] responses to the news media. That alone makes him a good, maybe even great choice.

[calicoug]

I remember Snipe saying that Palin was the democrats worst nightmare.

Here you go:

http://www.cougarboard.com/board/mes...tml?id=3988972

Good times.

[Tex]

I remember Snipe saying that Palin was the democrats worst nightmare.

Tex was in love. Do you guys remember his avatars on CG? He had a Palin avatar as well as a pig with lipstick. He had completely bought it.

It was either Tex or Snipe that claimed that McCain had "played the media like a virtuoso" in making his Palin announcement.

Just for the record:

"Palin's not my favorite politician ..."
"I would use the term lukewarm."
"I've never really been a huge Palin fan."
"I'm a mild fan."

Your memory matches your wit.

[TripletDaddy]

Just for the record:

"Palin's not my favorite politician ..."
"I would use the term lukewarm."
"I've never really been a huge Palin fan."
"I'm a mild fan."

Your memory matches your wit.

lol, tex responds. I played him like a virtuoso.

[Omaha 680]

Are we talking about long-term debt issues (which I thought was your point earlier) or current deficit issues? I thought we were focusing on the long-term issues but your post here references the current deficit.

I'm not at all worried about the current deficit. It's largely a byproduct of a recession combined with war spending. Tax revenues are sharply down relative to the norm, something that will fix itself once the economy boots back up to full speed. War spending is already on the decline with our withdrawal from Iraq and pending withdrawal from Afghanistan. Those two factors alone are probably enough to fix the deficit we have now.

Long term, we have structural issues that need fixing (Medicare being the top priority). Defense spending isn't "structural" except in one sense- the defense lobby is huge and powerful and it's getting increasingly difficult to stop projects that don't work, close bases that aren't necessary, and trim spending overall. That's a compounding issue and one that will need addressing. Eisenhower was a bit of a prophet in this regard.

I'm talking about both. But just because the structural problems are much greater doesn't mean we don't need short-term correction as well. I am mainly just disputing that defense spending has a lot to do with either short term deficits or structural problems. How do you square these numbers with your statement that the deficit is all war spending and recession?

Year/Receipts/Outlays/Difference
2007 (peak revenue): 2.57 trillion, 2.73 trillion (-0.16)
2011: 2.31 trillion, 3.61 trillion (-1.30)
2012 (est.): 2.47 trillion, 3.80 trillion (-1.33)

Revenue is nearly back to prerecession levels, yet we still have trillion dollar+ defecits. Is this because of war spending? At the peak we were spending about $150 billion a year on the wars. So if those just went away we would still be running a trillion dollar plus defecit with revenues almost back to normal. If we slashed defense spending back to pre-W levels, we would save $400 billion a year, leaving a $900 billion defecit.

Also, as an aside, Eisenhower made his military-industrial complex speech when defense spending was a full 70% of total federal outlays. At the peak under GWB, we were barely over 20.

I will say again I am not opposed to defense cuts becuase it is important to the left and we need to get a majority on board somehow to solve the real problems. But claiming defense is a big driver of the problem ignores the numbers, IMO.

Edit: Looks like my war spending was a bit low. We spent about $200 billion at the peak in 2008.

[calicoug]

As a rough measure of conservative enthusiasm:

$3.5 million raised online only in first 24 hours after Ryan announcement, $4.7m total so far.

And, a few photos of rallies in NC and WI.

Sure looks like a bunch of people trying to convince themselves, don't it?

Via Drudge:

Ryan had better up his game. He's already $300k behind where Palin was at this time.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/mccain-donations-rolling-in-after-palin-pick/

[TripletDaddy]

Ryan had better up his game. He's already $300k behind where Palin was at this time.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2...er-palin-pick/

ha. The sabbath is clearly over because Cali is doing work.

[Tex]

First time ever that Cali cites Tex in support of his argument.

He did?