I am beginning to become scared that Romney/Ryan will win. Can smart people please post here and say reassuring things to convince me that he won't?

yeah, i hope so. i just feel alarmed based on conversations with people i've had who think that if obama is re-elected will take away what little they have because he is so socialist. but somehow romney will propel them upwards at least a couple of tax brackets because initiative

yeah this is the underlying thing, no matter what the candidates' names are, no matter what they say, no matter what wolf blitzer and john king and rush limbaugh and amy goodman and steven colbert focus on - it doesn't matter. people revert to this primal judgment that republicans will loosen up the rules and help u make $ and that democrats will increase your taxes.

it is just frustrating when those bromides are ingrained enough that they can be leant upon even while being demonstrably untrue, cf ryan being understood as a 'deficit hawk' on account of his bluster. from harper's this month:

From Harper's August 2012:

-- Percentage increase in average annual federal spending during the Obama Administration: 2.4

-- Rank of that rate of increase among the lowest under any president since Truman: 1

del, how old are you?

Romney and his people know how to couch the mythology in the right terms

haha no they don't! And there's no evidence they know how. I probably hang out with more Florida Republicans than most people on this thread and they all to a man think Romney sucks and is going to lose.

Romney picking Ryan is in some ways a, yes, conservative (in the literal sense) act of desperation. Romney, Inc. knew it needed an infusion of energy, and in picking Ryan it may have gotten it. However, the only energy it really drives up is in the press and in the radical small government wing of the Republican party. But many (all?) of Ryan's big ideas are national campaign kryptonite and Romney is not adept enough a campaigner to defend those ideas. Now, Ryan couches his crazy ideas in a safe, seemingly reasonable package, which often fools the average voters (as do shiny objects and free donuts) but now that he's been given the role of attack dog he's just going to come off a big dick. In fact, I look forward to the Biden/Ryan debate, where the former's experience will give him an upper hand, and where Ryan's assholery will give him license to hammer that the Palin pick did not. Attack dog vs. attack dog, but alpha dog is not muzzled. (I look forward to the Obama/Romney debates, too, but for different reasons).

It is kind of interesting that Ryan sort of fills the Cheney mold - the idea man as VP - but like I mentioned on another thread, I get a real sense of strategic preservation from the guy. Which may be better than Romney's cowardly self-preservation, which totally hinders him as a campaigner, but maybe Ryan will evolve on the trail.

entire premise of this thread is lol

Alfred OTM Romney and his campaign are hapless oafs, it's pretty clear at this point

alfred i am 39

Dude you're just younger than me by two years!

facebork posts last year from rabidly catholic pseudofriends: 'it doesn't matter what people are do with birth control, the bishops are right, we must always heed the teaching authority of the church'

facebork posts this year: 'the bishops were wrong about paul ryan's budget, it is their reflexive left-wing bias, it is immoral to impose massive debt on the next gen'

thr Catholic 'rabids' tend to ignore papal complaints about the justifiability of recent US wars too. They are the real "cafeteria Catholics."

I can't remember who said it--Wiegel, maybe--but I agree that there'll be an accepted view come out of the nomination process this year, that Romney had it locked up the whole way, that's just not true. Going into Michigan, there was a real chance that the whole thing was about to unravel on him.

Romney did have it locked up the whole way, and anyone who think the people who run the GOP would have let somebody like Santorum be the nominee is nuts IMO

true, the "voting" was all pantomime, the mechanism was set for Willard

Romney had everything in his favor the whole way, and I agree that things became really unwinnable for Santorum way before the latter bowed out, but I feel like "locked" should be reserved for a serious no-competition deal, like Gore vs. Bradley, or even W's 2000 campaign, where there were a lot of sideshow contenders keeping things going but the "mechanism" never once faltering. It was possible for Romney to lose, IMO.

they would've changed the rules if it came to that.

Ryan is a pretty bad choice for winning 2012, I would have pushed for Sen. Marco Rubio from Florida. That said, the Republican establishment has been grooming Ryan for the national stage since at least 2000, and I think the establishment is hedging 2012 by elevating Ryan to the national stage for a 2016 run. There are a lot of things that will probably go wrong that are largely out of a second Obama administration's control (peak oil, euro breakup, Japanese debt crisis, etc), so I can see the strategy.

I kinda like Ryan, as he was one of the few national figures that was willing to endorse the political kryptonite of entitlement cuts in the early part of last decade. We will get entitlement cuts regardless, there simply isn't a large enough tax base to support current growth in Medicare and Social Security. Millionares can and should be taxed more, but there simply aren't enough of them to cover the demographic shift and health-care cost driven middle class entitlement growth (you can do the math too, using IRS statistics). To date no Democratic proposal I've seen really addresses this, so the Democratic plan is probably crisis austerity after Treasury interest rates bounce back to long term norms. As my hot-button issues are things that will really matter mid-century like greenhouse emissions and foreign policy arrogance, I'll vote for the lesser of evils (Obama) again.

I kinda like Ryan

fuck you, seriously

i fucking hate this country so much

just, fuck you.

yeah, ryan's endorsement of entitlement cuts isn't particularly sensible or noble as he's generally committed to gutting government services, breaking unions and disempowering the middle class.

'but at least he's talking about the issues!'

I've been saying this for about two years at this point, like a mantra, and first people refused to believe the first part, and now they keep doubting me on the second part:

It's gonna be Romney, and he's gonna lose.

The minute I looked at the parade of cartoon assholes lining up to run, I knew it was gonna be Romney. And the minute I saw Romney try to speak to human beings from Earth, I knew he was doomed. If you think he can convince people to vote for him and not against Obama, you're delusional. Romney's only chance - his only chance - is for the "fuck that nigger" vote to be way, way bigger than it was in 2008, and way bigger than any poll has indicated. It's just not there. He's gonna lose, and it's not even gonna be close. The margin's gonna be wider than it was versus McCain.

if you pledge to never ever raise taxes for any reason and refuse to consider cutting military spending, you aren't being serious, you're being a dick xp

terrorists

The math of looming entitlement shortfalls doesn't have a political bias. To date both political parties have largely just kicked the can down the road, or made things significantly worse (Medicare Part D, anyone)? I can't blame them, its political kryptonite. But there are a lot of bright people like former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker or Laurence Kotlikoff (both of whom intensely disdain both parties) that can walk the layperson through the actuarial math. If you need an economist from the political left try Isabel Sawhill.

All the recent fiscal disasters like Greece or California towns that promised more than it was possible for their tax base to support aren't particularly unusual (globally, or historically). They just got there first.

I've been saying this for about two years at this point, like a mantra, and first people refused to believe the first part, and now they keep doubting me on the second part:

It's gonna be Romney, and he's gonna lose.

The minute I looked at the parade of cartoon assholes lining up to run, I knew it was gonna be Romney. And the minute I saw Romney try to speak to human beings from Earth, I knew he was doomed. If you think he can convince people to vote /for him/ and not /against Obama/, you're delusional. Romney's only chance - his /only/ chance - is for the "fuck that nigger" vote to be way, way bigger than it was in 2008, and way bigger than any poll has indicated. It's just not there. He's gonna lose, and it's not even gonna be close. The margin's gonna be wider than it was versus McCain.

OTM

before the Ryan pick I was finally relegating myself to the idea that it was 50/50 and despite his utter incompetence as a campaigner Romney might win. admitting I had been in denial or overestimating the intelligence of the american public etc but for reasons I can't quite articulate now I'm feeling confident that Romney will continue to cripple himself with ineptitude (is that a word?) and Ryan will ultimately pull him down.

Ryan isn't going to pull Mitt down; Ryan is going to pull himself up a la 2004 Edwards, as someone mentioned upthread. This whole situation cements Romney as the Republican Kerry, which we already knew anyway.

Just trying to coherently defend Ryan's numerous Newt-like Big Ideas will prove Mitt's (further) undoing. I know he probably picked Ryan as a guy who can hold his own, but I wonder if it occurred to Mitt that he's going to have to hold Ryan's own (so to speak), too.

As for Ryan's future, his consistency will be his undoing. He's been hammering at the same ideas for so long that by the time he gets around to running for Pres, if he does, they'll not only be old ideas, but old failed ideas.

...but Kerry came rather close to winning, ya know. xp

was it Tomasky who wrote the article last week arguing that there's a good possibility Obama does win in a landslide?

I often forget that Kerry is still a senator.

The election is really so close, and the Mittmentum is not in the candidate's favor.

Like, Mitt could only win if he brought Osama Bin Laden back to life, reminded people who he was again, and then killed him a second time. And then his numbers would just as quickly plumet for carelessly reanimating him.

the GOP can only win if it brings Reagan back to life.

Ryan (who I first campaigned against in 2000 while a graduate student in Madison) is a great public speaker. Way better than Romney, though not par with Obama on a good day. The big problem with the choice is that Ryan doesn't put any swing states into contention, doesn't make any appeals to Hispanics (the ethnic group that will utterly kill Republican national tickets for decades to come), and doesn't make Romney look any more likeable than he is.

Really bad choice for Romney, but interesting choice coming from the Republican establishment. Its as if they're willing to sacrifice 2012 to keep Tea Party types enthused about local races and push an idea guy into the spotlight. Then again, Ryan 2016 could well go down like Goldwater 1964.

While I definitely thought it would be romney for the last few years, I do wonder what would have happened to Santorum if Gingrich hadn't fucked up his shit in so many states (quite a few were near ties between Rick and Mitt, with Gingrich getting getting more than enough to make the difference). I assumed most of Newt's votes were "Not Romneys" more '90s nostalgic than evangelical, and if Rick had picked up more of them than Mitt he could have won quite a few more states. Mitt probably would have blasted Santorum even harder, someone else might have run, etc, etc, but if Newt had skipped off earlier I wonder if Rick would have had an edge.

alfred otm

but sadly they keep resurrecting revisionist versions of his ghost, which is enough for enough of the people enough of the time

Mitt probably would have blasted Santorum even harder, someone else might have run, etc, etc, but if Newt had skipped off earlier I wonder if Rick would have had an edge.

It was always gonna be Romney (hell, I'm kind of amazed it wasn't Romney in 2008), but Santorum could well have had Ryan's spot if not for Newt.

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110615120715/en.futurama/images/0/03/RonaldReagansHead.png

huh Bush d. Kerry was much closer than I remember it being

Then again, I knew Kerry had lost when he followed up a BEP performance with "a really special treat for everyone": James Taylor and his acoustic guitar so I probably just stopped following the electoral count

"I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for doody."

Dude was hammering youth and excitement and everything he'd done to get young ppl out, and then at his rally had both JT and Sheryl Crow do acoustic sets; I'm surprised he didn't have a video montage of 50s teens hula hooping to "Chantilly Lace".

The math of looming entitlement shortfalls doesn't have a political bias.

― The Painter of Blight™ (Sanpaku), Sunday, August 12, 2012 11:11 AM (30 minutes ago)

no, of course not, but ryan's flogging of entitlement cuts sure as hell does.

(and despite being created by a mad scientist out of dead body parts, he was about a bazillion times more adept at talking to people than Romney, even of half of those conversations ended up with a little girl drowning in a well)

do you guys dig how fucking batshit the GOP convention is going to be

REMEMBER

http://www.barewalls.com/i/c/428035_Rockin-Rebel.jpg

Aren't they still wondering whether they can keep Palin out or not?

xpost Jesus Alfred if ever we needed a reminder of just how ossified Rolling Stone got.

Mike Mills plays bass, Eddie Vedder was drummer for Hovercraft I say we got ourselves a supergroup on that cover

do you guys dig how fucking batshit the GOP convention is going to be

I'm hoping Palin morphs into an actual pit bull and eats Pawlenty

and Jackson Browne covering JT songs

no, of course not, but ryan's flogging of entitlement cuts sure as hell does.

Really really wish Obama had pushed something like Isabell Sawhill's suggested entitlement changes or even the Bowles/Simpson recommendations. To not suggest anything was ceding the idea high-ground to the ideologues of the Right.

Jesus Alfred if ever we needed a reminder of just how ossified Rolling Stone got.

you mean brian wilson isn't one of the ten best new bands?