Mitt Romney picks Paul Ryan as Running Mate

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The faces we must
expect to see with
the GOP in the
White House

!!!  Well, I don’t see how this can play out to anyone’s advantage, except, possibly, that of Paul Ryan.  The Wisconsin electorate is certain to see the negative effects of Ryan's handling of the budget, and there seems no way that he could possibly win another term in Congress.  Being a VP will keep him from starving for a while.  How could anyone suggest that Obama is responsible for the economy, when Paul Ryan and his Congressional friends have such a stranglehold on the budget?

Clearly Paul Ryan has ambitions to run for President in the near future.  That will be fine for all those who sincerely believe that they are going to earn a lot of money as soon as the Economy "bounces back."  If you’re going to earn a lot of money, of course you can pay for your own Health Insurance, of course you can afford all the wonderful things you’ve always wanted, of course you don’t want those damn Democrats getting their hands on your money by raising taxes.  So being a fiscal conservative is a little like a religion: if you have faith in the Economy, it will bounce back, and you will make money, and to hell with the environment, poverty, aging, health care, World Peace, and the Chinese.  The only thing you will need, really, is a huge Defense budget just to make sure that people outside the US don’t get any silly ideas.

Well, the Economy answers the prayers of its believers briefly, just until some bright sparks take advantage of the loosening of controls to work a scheme that benefits a few crooks and seriously rocks the equilibrium of the Economy.  I’m not sure how the Republicans view the culprits of the Enron scandal, the Bernie Madoff scandal, the WorldCom scandal, the Abrahamov scandal, the Mortgage scandal, and the bankruptcies of Lehman Brothers and AIG.  These all seriously affect the "faith".  Usually, though, public indignation against these people is short-lived; it is the (supposedly liberal) Media that seems to be most interested in them.  So, though Republican fiscal conservatives do seem to regard the Economy as a sort of religion, it appears that they are also secret non-believers, because they appear to condone crimes against their religion with a fair degree of equanimity.

Anyone interested in analyzing the effects of the scandals of  2000-2009 decade might want to read this article on The decade's worst financial scandals.  I can’t bear to read it; it seems somewhat speculative to me.

So, as far as I can see, I don’t think the choice of Paul Ryan makes the tiniest difference to the coming elections: it is designed to appease the Tea-Partyers.  The GOP now has to make the case that a conservative Congress alone could not improve the Economy; they also needed a Conservative in the White House.  They need to wash their hands of the economic mismanagement under two terms of Republicans in the White House (after all, they will claim, there was a War On, and wars aren’t good for business, right?) one of which had a Republican majority in Congress, and another four years with Obama, and an overwhelming Republican majority in Congress.  And whenever the GOP has a large majority in Congress, they have a Plan called something like Contract With America, which promises that life will be better with fewer taxes and fewer Government services.  All it means is that the States have to hustle to avoid taking the blame for great hardship among the poor.  The implications are clear: the GOP just does not know how to deal with the poor, and wants it gone.  This is clear when you read between the lines of their Immigration policy: Everyone must get behind the demonization of illegal Mexican immigrants.  "There’s just so much to go around, and we want to keep the scraps that we have budgeted for poor people for American poor people."  This distracts from the fact that they are just that: scraps.  People must keep what they earn, and if you don’t earn much, well, that’s what you get to keep.  We knew this all along.  With the GOP, you’re on your own.  And that’s the way they like it, because they’re all going to do well in a good Economy.  That’s faith.

Afterthought:
The GOP is shamelessly focusing on not the Middle Class, but the Upper Middle Class, or, let’s face it: the Upper Class.  This is because it expects that the Democrats find it notoriously difficult to get the Working Class to come out and vote.  This is generally true, especially if the members of the Working Poor (and unemployed) can be made to believe that there will be unsurmountable difficulties in getting satisfactory ID in time for the election.
The Democrats have to get past this.   We can’t live in a world where most of us have satisfactory ID and are accustomed to producing it on demand, but where ID is inexplicably difficult for a certain sector at certain times, e.g. during elections.  I side with the GOP on this issue: let’s get ID for everyone who needs it by election time.  If the Democrat campaign workers have to work harder to help people to get registered, get ID, and get them to the polls, so be it.  In my opinion, the three objectives are not mutually exclusive; rather, they reinforce each other.
This election should be either an easy win for the Democrats, or an overwhelming victory for the Democrats.  The Working Class can be reminded that "trickle-down" economics does not work.  The Reagan-Bush Era wasn’t good for anyone unless they were working for Defense, or a screwy investment bank, or a credit card company.  But if all the campaigns work hard enough, and try to avoid getting preoccupied with Media advertising, this could be an overwhelming victory for the Democrats despite massive fundraising by the Republicans.  I reject the belief that massive fundraising is the key to election victory.  (It would be, if we subscribe to the assumption that everyone on our side--or everyone who is undecided--is a complete idiot.

[Added later:

Move On just sent me a bulletin saying that Mitt Romney has possibly just committed "political suicide" by picking Paul Ryan as his running-mate; something we can agree about.

However, they continue (Justin Ruben), Paul Ryan is young, and cute.  The implication is that cuteness can appeal to the Great Undecided when logic and track record might not.  (With an Undecided like that, who needs enemies, eh?)  So they want $200,000 to let America know that Paul Ryan is not to be trusted.

Let’s try and win this election without pouring a lot of money into the coffers of advertisers (probably Republicans, anyway).  If the same people who buy commodities like, well, American cars, for instance, because they believe TV ads are going to believe that Romney-Ryan is good for the country, well, we’re screwed anyway.  If Obama won a second term, these morons would be gnawing away at any gains in the economy or living standards because they can be persuaded by TV advertisements that despite everything "appearing" to be wonderful, they’re really suffering because the Democrats are in control, and who knows what horrible plans they have for the future?  They're probably going to make all the Chinese legal immigrants.  The GOP fear mongerers are a lot more efficient at persuading people about imaginary problems than we are at persuading people about real problems, such as poor education and decaying infrastructure.

My theory is that these morons are a small minority, pathetically dependent on the Tea Party to satisfy their "fear-craving".  If the majority of voting-age people go to the polls, there should be a huge victory for Obama, and all Democrat congressional candidates running for office.  But the problem is to get the majority of people to actually vote.]

Arch.

P.S. Here is a great clip: