Paul Ryan?

I haven't been writing a lot of political posts in a while. And it's an election year! I started this blog in an election year, 2004 - and that year, laid on the politics thick. Let's say, August 2004 - 7 of 12 posts about politics. By 2008, though, I was past all that - 1 of 9, in August that year. Back in 04, that was mostly what went on here - politics... but I think it burned me out after a while. The last few years - Obama's term, really, has been very hard to talk about rationally. The Republican party has plumbed depths hard to imagine - everything from all the birth certificate noise, to imbeciles like Sarah Palin being elevated to national prominence, and her fellow imbeciles who made up the primary pool this year. Cain? Bachmann? Ron Paul? Newt Gingrich? Rick Santorum? Rick Perry? I mean - as dumb, venal, vicious a lot as has ever been assembled on any stage...

All right... It's hard to write about. It's been hard for other reasons - what is there to say? the public conversation has not edified - I suppose I could have spent the last 3 years chanting Single Payer Health Care! Keynes Keynes Keynes! don't murder civilians with drones! - but what's the point? It's worse, of course, in the backwaters - on Facebook and the like - where all those crazy cousins and schoolmates feel like they have to post some new nonsense every couple days... I could argue with all of that, but it's arguing with a lump of rock. It's discouraging....

But - still. One has political opinions and one feels a need to air them now and again! So air I shall - and what better excuse than Mitt Romney naming his running mate, Wisconsin congressman, Paul Ryan? The Zombie Eyed Granny Starver himself - for there is no better source of writing on the man than the inimitable Charles Pierce. Yes indeed. It is, clearly enough, Mitt going all in - quoting Nate Silverman, "it suggests that he felt he held a losing position against President Obama" - seems like he's decided to run on ideology, to offer a clear choice between himself and Obama - in hopes - well, that's the thing...

Because if you ask me, this choice is a gift to the Obama campaign. The truth is, Romney doesn't have a lot going for him in this election - the one big thing he has in his favor is the rotten economy. He can run all day blaming the economy on the incumbent - what can the incumbent do? Well - find someone else to blame.And - well, even without Ryan, Romney had problems there. You can blame the president for the economy, sure - but you can find other likely culprits easily enough. Rapacious capitalists for example - and Mitt "I don't need to pay no stinking taxes" Romney, and Bain Capital are tailor made for that sort of campaign. And then there is Congress - especially the House - the democrats have been blaming them for the last two years (with good reason - they have done more harm than anyone else in that period), even before all this... But now? Ryan is the very face of the Republican House - author of its budget, the - what? brains of the outfit? Obama was running against him anyway, doing all it could to pin him to Romney - and now Romney has accepted the connection, reinforced it. It is going to be very easy for the democrats to run against them - it is going to make running on the economy very hard to Romney.

So what is he up to? shoring up the base? probably, though how far is that really able to go? Trying to run on a clear ideological alternative to Obama? I suppose so - though he represents an alternative that people hate worse than anything Obama does. And one that is, in fact, plain gibberish - lots of daydreaming about reducing the deficit and all, though in fact, there's not much there but tax cuts for the rich, and entitlement cuts for everyone else, though disguised to confuse the issue (like not applying medicare cuts to people currently over 55.) I mean - I know the voting public isn't very clear on what is good for the country (what is good for the country? significant government spending to create jobs - money and credit is dirt cheap - build a bunch of stuff, put people to work, get the economy going building stuff and selling it to people - Keynes Keynes Keynes!), but they seem to know that Ryan's ideas are disastrous. Granny starving. (Or more accurately, since Granny's benefits will be grandfathered in, you and me starving, when we get to be grannies...)

And - oh yeah, for good measure - Paul Ryan is also a right wing radical on social issues.

These guys are a horror show in the making. I admit, fi they are elected, I imagine they will act like every other republican in the last 30 years - cut taxes, increase the deficit, start little wars to create profit opportunities for their contractor contributors, move jobs overseas, and leave the country in a shambles in 4 years when they get the rush... forcing the next democratic president to bail out the banks again... But... they might actually try to govern like they run - which would be profoundly disastrous.