Why Paul Ryan will be the next Vice President of the United States
Paul Ryan first caught my attention during the health care debate – in particular the “summit” the president held with leading Republicans in Congress so he could treat them like straw men and dress them down in front of the cameras.
Thanks to Paul Ryan, it didn’t work out that way (Ace of Spades).
What struck me about Ryan were two things: he clearly put some thought into this issue, and he refused to raise his voice or sour his tone. In other words, he was disagreeing with the president without being disagreeable.
The first part means Romney, by selecting Ryan, has made it clear he prefers someone who understands the government needs to be less involved in health care to fix it. He (Romney) has also revealed his clear preference for the Ryan budget plan to bring us closer to fiscal sanity.
That Ryan has managed to work with prominent Democrats on these matters (Clinton OMB Director Alice Rivlin on the budget, Senator Ron Wyden on health care) will only add to his cache.
It also points to what may be the more critical reason Ryan is such a good choice. Most political activists understand that the battles over the last few years have been clashes if ideas. The rest of the country, however, hasn’t really seen that yet. Not taking (or having) the time to delve deep into politics, they assume it’s just tribal warfare.
Ryan, by contrast, not only fights for ideas, but he also reaches out to
Democrats who share them. Thus he appeals not only to the conservative idealists, but also the less-informed voter who would prefer Washington dial down the conflict and focus on the issues at hand.
This makes him a perfect foil for the president – who revealed his political bloodlust a little too much with the now infamous Mitt-Romney-killed-my-wife Super PAC ad. That Gallup suddenly showed a six point shift away from him
(from -2 to -8 on the approval/disapproval score) is telling.
Ryan will not tell anyone to dislike Barack Obama. Hd will succinctly, politely, and firmly explain why a Romney Administration would be better than the current one. That is what voters want and need to hear, and that is why Paul Ryan will be the next Vice President of the United States.
Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal
6 Responses to “Why Paul Ryan will be the next Vice President of the United States”
I’m delighted with Romney’s pick of Ryan. Ryan is a true intellectual who will reduce Biden to tears in the debate. He brings a strong commitment to conservative values and an approach to job creation, economic growth, and debt reduction that will work. Philosophically, he’s an Ayn Rand devotee. I can’t say enough good things about this VP pick.
Romney and Ryan have already begun dispelling the lies Obama has been telling about his Medicare proposals. Ryan’s plan will over time create choice and actually add funding to Medicare. Obamacare guts hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare, and eventually destroys it.
Ryan successfully negotiated his Medicare proposal to get bipartisan support for the final version he put forth. In fact, it became known as the Wyden-Ryan Medicare Plan, reflecting the fact that liberal Democratic Oregon Senator Ron Wyden signed on. The plan shows not only that Ryan has the ability to create substantive proposals to deal with debt and entitlement problems, but also that he has the ability to work with Democrats and those with vastly different political philosophies to craft plans with bipartisan support.
The radical left will try to discredit Ryan by attacking earlier versions of the proposal, and airing obscene commercials of a Ryan look-alike rolling an elderly person off a cliff in their wheelchair. However, Ryan is to be commended for floating many ideas for discussion, finding where the consensus is, and putting forward a strong proposal to save Medicare that serious elected officials of good will from both parties can support.
Even NPR, hardly a right-wing mouthpiece, reported that Ryan’s successful bipartisan efforts to find solutions met with the ire of more partisan Democrats who see Medicare only as an issue to use in elections rather than a serious problem that needs to be addressed:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/12/15/143782004/wyden-ryan-medicare-plan-shakes-up-politics-more-than-policy
The Wyden-Ryan Medicare Plan is much, much closer to the proposal put forward by the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform than is the plan for Medicare in the Obamacare legislation. President Obama himself created this commission, and then ignored its recommendations when they did not support his vision of expanded government, and increasing deficits and spending as far as the eye can see.
The greatest task ahead for Romney and Ryan will be counteracting the Obamaloney and lies, especially in states like Florida where the Democrats’ tactics of scare-mongering and lies about serious proposals to deal with entitlement reform have worked in the past.
Ryan will be a breath of fresh air after the years of narrow ideology, deficits, job destruction and partisanship we’ve seen under Obama and company.
Paul Ryan is not an Ayn Rand devotee-
“I reject her philosophy,” Ryan says firmly. “It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a person’s view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas,” who believed that man needs divine help in the pursuit of knowledge. “Don’t give me Ayn Rand,” he says.
Rand was close to getting it right, but she left out our God-given talents. After reading Atlas Shrugged, my takeaway was we should strive to be our best not only for ourselves, but to waste our God-given talents is tantamount to being a sin.
Well said. I would add the like Reagan Rep Ryan does not shy away from his conservatism in order to find some mystical common ground. He would rather articulate and teach than trade away at the drop of a hat in order to play the role of deal maker. He understands it is the aggregate total of all those deals that got us where we are. Ryan is the new face of the conservative movement moving forward.
I am pleased with Romney’s pick of Paul Ryan, although I would have been happy with McDonnell. The pick has its risks, certainly (i.e. the Democrats demonization of the Ryan budget proposals, “throwing granny off the cliff” and so forth). At the same time, the GOP is signaling that it is their intention to have an adult conversation about the buget, the deficits, and entitlement programs (something that Democrats are apparently incapable of doing). Will it be a winning strategy? Only time will tell. However, the election will be a clear choice for the voters to consider. Ryan knows the issues inside and out, he speaks clearly, can handle the press, could potentially put Wisconsin in play, and satisfies the conservative base. He is also capable of drawing a crowd (over 10,000 people went to see him in Manassas) and help raise money ($3.5 million in one day after his selection was announced). Will it be a winning formula? As I said, time will tell.
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