Obama/Biden vs Romney/Ryan--America's Choose Your Own Adventure Moment

[oxcoug]

Down one road: An ongoing expansion of government and leaders that have shown no serious intent or ability to address America's cataclysmic (if still mostly latent) debt crisis.

Down the other: Probably some near-term pain accompanied by a detailed vision that Clinton and Obama appointee Erskine Bowles calls "sensible," "honest" and "serious" (while raving about Ryan as "amazing" command of detail).

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/1...onest-serious/

There are a few ways to summarize the differences in the two visions but, I think that this link might just do it with one image and a single word:



No mistaking the choice.

BTW, as everyone recognizes - the Ryan pick alters the dynamic of the race in a way that no other choice could have. Hence the new thread.

As a final note: R/R have come out blasting on offense against the inevitable Mediscare campaign. And they've got an effective three-piece strategy: (a) Obama cut $710B from Medicare, Romney's plan will not, (b) the cover of Ryan's collaboration on Ryan-Wyden - hard to paint a guy as extreme who has managed a bi-partisan solution with someone as liberal as Wyden and (c) endorsements of Ryan's seriousness, good faith and intelligence from uber-respected Democrats like Erskine Bowles.

And the final card is just this: No one can actually pay attention to Ryan and understand what he's doing and think he's an extremist of any sort.

[byu71]

And the final card is just this: No one can actually pay attention to Ryan and understand what he's doing and think he's an extremist of any sort.

So you are accusing Debbie W. Shitlz and every other democrat who showed up on TV yesterday of "not" paying attention.

[Surfah]

So you are accusing Debbie W. Shitlz and every other democrat who showed up on TV yesterday of "not" paying attention.

I think this clip demonstrates her ability to not pay attention:

[YOUTUBE]afIG0Vgd0aY[/YOUTUBE]

[Goatnapper'96]

I like it.

Win or lose, and most of you know I strongly believe Romney will win in November, it gives a platform for Ryan's budget to get attention. To date the President has offered no solution to our current and future fiscal woes than making the rich pay their fair share. The problem is complex and the answers are not politically easy. Paul Ryan does the best job of any politician of breaking down the issues and offering viable solutions. Clearly I don't think his solution will work as is as I believe any final solution will need more revenues just to get consensus and the emotional boost to pass, but my opinion is Romney is enough of a pragmatic to work to that once he is elected. The current President has never been an adult about the issue and in 4 years he has either totally failed at leading in that direction or just failed to try.

Ryan's budget has gotten a great deal of criticism and that will likely continue, but by bringing Ryan on board it forces Romney to not just try to win this thing by letting Obama lose it. It offers a clear cut choice of direction, but to make such a story politically palpable it requires a really capable politician. The budget issues, both present and certainly future, are so complex it is really difficult to simplify it for a short political blast. But if anyone is capable of doing it it is Paul Ryan. I just don't know if a VP candidate gets that much attention and I wonder if Romney is up to the task. It is a risky strategy but it is bold and gives the country the chance to be adults about an adult issue.

If Romney does win I hope he leads on the issue but lets all dismiss the notions of "mandates" right here and right now. Part of Romney's winning demographic might include fiscal conservatives who like this budget plan but a great deal of them will be folks who just realize the current President has been poor at leading the country. If the right starts taking its "mandate" serious, what I mean by that is not building bi-partisan consensus on the issue, Romney will likely lead as poorly as Obama has.

[YOhio]

Win or lose, and most of you know I strongly believe Romney will win in November...

Shit. We're screwed. You also strongly believed BYU would be in the Big 12.

[Goatnapper'96]

Shit. We're screwed. You also strongly believed BYU would be in the Big 12.

Is there any doubt that they won't be in the Big-12 someday?

[YOhio]

Is there any doubt that they won't be in the Big-12 someday?

Yes. Plenty.

[TripletDaddy]

I really enjoyed Choose Your Own Adventure in my youth. Great books and great concept.

[Goatnapper'96]

Yes. Plenty.

Who, where? Seriously? Everyone knows the Big-12 has to get to a Championship Game and they are currently at 10 teams. HELLLLLLOOOO! They need two more teams and where are those going to come from? Are you not aware that Texas is learning about our high definition trucks or something?

[TripletDaddy]

Who, where? Seriously? Everyone knows the Big-12 has to get to a Championship Game and they are currently at 10 teams. HELLLLLLOOOO! They need two more teams and where are those going to come from? Are you not aware that Texas is learning about our high definition trucks or something?

Given that expansion has to happen asap and that nobody else can up and leave their conference and join a new one in a matter of months, the B12 will expand next summer (2013) and BYU will receive the official invite. The "Welcome to the B12" party will take place when Texas comes to town for the game.

Being gracious hosts and A+ sportsmen, BYU will hand texas a huge victory on the field.

[Eddie]

Given that expansion has to happen asap and that nobody else can up and leave their conference and join a new one in a matter of months, the B12 will expand next summer (2013) and BYU will receive the official invite. The "Welcome to the B12" party will take place when Texas comes to town for the game.

Being gracious hosts and A+ sportsmen, BYU will hand texas a huge victory on the field.

If I thought it would help BYU's chances of getting into the B12, I would be all for throwing the game.

(Assuming, of course, that BYU would even NEED to throw the game going in with a brand new QB.)

In fact - I could totally support BYU intentionally losing every conference game for the first couple of years if that is what the B12 wanted in order to invite them.

[Y84it]

I guess Obama n'Axelrod sent some hecklers to Ryan's speach in Iowa. Fists were thrown. Hecklers were arrested. Game on I guess. Let the GAMES begin!

[Surfah]

Obama's Tumblr page.

http://barackobama.tumblr.com/post/2...xcitement-this

In case you missed all the excitement this weekend: Meet Paul Ryan, who is actually the worst.


BTW, Tumblr is stupid. I have never understood the appeal or format of Tumblr, Digg, etc. Though I do like Reddit.

[LA Ute]

Getting back to the topic of the election....

I'll repeat here some things I posted elsewhere about Ryan and Medicare. The Dems seem pretty sure (if they are telling the truth about how excited they are about Ryan being the choice) that a traditional Mediscare campaign will work. Maybe they are right, but I think the dynamic is different this time.

First, the Dems will try to exploit some inevitable confusion about what Ryan has proposed to do about Medicare. The Romney campaign has to deal with that up front, and it seems they are trying to do that.

The challenge is that there are two Ryan plans, one he came up with himself in the spring of 2011, and another which he came out with in December 2011 in tandem with Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. That December plan is the one Ryan put in his proposed 2012 budget and which he is pushing now. The first one was more radical and it is the one Democrats will want to talk about.

This is an ABC News summary of both plans and the differences in them. Here's the official summary by both Wyden and Ryan of their proposal. The most important features, for political purposes, are:

• No one over 55 is touched by it -- Medicare remains the same for those people. That takes away a lot of the Mediscare potential.
  
• It is not mandatory for anyone -- even those under age 55. If you want to stay with the traditional Medicare program you may choose to do so. Ryan seems to be betting that the market-oriented alternative will be so much better and give people so many more choices that it will attract more and more people and traditional Medicare will shrink.

The Wyden-Ryan plan is a serious effort by serious people to solve a problem everyone knows exists, but few have the courage to address, IMO.

Another political factoid that will help Ryan ward off the Democrats' bogeymen is this, which was edited out of last night's 60 Minutes interview with Romney and Ryan:

Ryan added, “My mom is a Medicare senior in Florida. Our point is we need to preserve their benefits, because government made promises to them that they’ve organized their retirements around. In order to make sure we can do that, you must reform it for those of us who are younger. And we think these reforms are good reforms. That have bipartisan origins. They started from the Clinton commission in the late ’90s.”

The election might well hang on whether the Democrats succeed in making Ryan look like the guy who wants to throw Granny under the bus. It's going to be interesting to watch.

[LA Ute]

NY Times' deep dive on Ryan:

Conservative Star’s Small-Town Roots