The US Presidential Election 2012, we're off ... we debated ... and it's finally over. Options

[Mister R]

I'll make a few points here.

Firstly its ridiculous to suggest that they have no knowledge on any of these subjects. That you might disagree with their analysis doesn't mean they know nothing. Equally I'd suggest that to say they have no 'experience' with foreign policy means they know nothing about it is a false equivalence. I've never dealt with heads of state but I have some knowledge of foreign policy. And frankly truth be told very few people who become President or Vice-President actually have anything close to relevant foreign policy experience. Its a very unique job.

I'd also say that whatever you might think of Paul Ryan he's clearly an intelligent man. I don't think painting this picture of him as an ignorant fool is really the way forward. I'm not even sure that's an accurate description of Romney.

[Parsifal]

I'd also say that whatever you might think of Paul Ryan he's clearly an intelligent man. I don't think painting this picture of him as an ignorant fool is really the way forward. I'm not even sure that's an accurate description of Romney.

I don't know where you got the idea that I think that Ryan is an ignorant fool. He is a very intelligent man and he certainly understands the federal budget (no easy feat). However, his vision for America frightens me.

Similarly, Romney is no ignorant fool (and he is quite intelligent if a blunderer). However, the man is not trustworthy and shows no qualifications for being leader of the most powerful nation on earth.

Maybe I need to be clearer, but you read things into my posts that are not there.

[Parsifal]

As for the rest of the bunch on the right side of the aisle, saying things like the US is going to be like Greece is not helpful. These people are either extremely stupid when it comes to economics or they are extremely deceitful. Neither of those qualities should be casting votes in Congress. The left is better, but not by a whole lot. It boggles my mind to think what it would be like if we could believe what our elected politicians tell us.

[Mister R]

I don't know where you got the idea that I think that Ryan is an ignorant fool...

Erm...

Yes, they know nothing about economics and fiscal issues.
They know nothing about foreign policy.
They know nothing about anything.
It's all about ideology in the ideal without regard to the reality on the ground.

Maybe you shouldn't say things like 'they know nothing about anything' if you don't want people to think you view someone as an ignorant fool. Just a suggestion.

And just for the record for all the criticism you dish out to elected officials for their use of hyperbolic rhetoric you're pretty prone to it yourself.

[Parsifal]

I don't know where you got the idea that I think that Ryan is an ignorant fool...

Erm...

Yes, they know nothing about economics and fiscal issues.
They know nothing about foreign policy.
They know nothing about anything.
It's all about ideology in the ideal without regard to the reality on the ground.

Maybe you shouldn't say things like 'they know nothing about anything' if you don't want people to think you view someone as an ignorant fool. Just a suggestion.

And just for the record for all the criticism you dish out to elected officials for their use of hyperbolic rhetoric you're pretty prone to it yourself.

Let me remind you that "ignorant fool" is your choice of words. You really shouldn't be putting words into people's mouths.

[Parsifal]

It's beginning to look like Romney's selection of Ryan as his running mate could be a game changer. Unlike Romney, Ryan is willing to state a specific policy agenda. With two years of budget proposals as chairman of the House budget committee a lot is in black and white, much of it highly controversial. Plus he's on record for backing George W. Bush's spending juggernaut. (Romney has already started to distance himself from Ryan's budget by saying that he has his own budget and tax proposals without telling us what they are.) The choice is a big risk for Romney.

Right now the hot potato in Ryan's budget is Medicare and his proposal to effectively scrap the very popular system in favor of a less generous voucher system (Vouchercare). Florida, a swing state, with its high proportion of retirees could be an early testing ground. With Ryan on the ticket now the campaigns stand a chance of having a genuine policy debate, i.e. what should the size and role of government be? I just hope that the statements coming from both sides are real and truthful and not the usual bullshit spin (remember death panels? ). Hopeful thinking, I know. This may also be a successful move by Romney to divert attention away from his refusal to release more tax returns (showing Americans how much taxes he paid over the years).

With Ryan's far more dynamic (and less secretive) personality than the bland awkward Romney the Republican ticket could turn into a Ryan/Romney ticket rather than a Romney/Ryan ticket. The vice presidential debate may prove far more interesting (and exciting) than the presidential debates.

[Parsifal]

Also, in Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, Mitt Romney has found a link to major conservative and libertarian donors who are planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat President Obama. Let's not fool ourselves.

[sanitynotincluded]

Ryan now acts as a lightening rod that compels these people to come out and vote for Obama when they might otherwise have stayed at home this year.

The ones who hate Ryan enough to be influenced by him were never going to be the ones who might stay at home anyway.

[sanitynotincluded]

A complete non-issue.

Not least because it would be an act of monumental stupidity for Obama to try and make foreign policy an election issue. About all he can point to is the death of Bin Laden, and his pathetic attempts to put his courage ahead of that of the troops who actually did the mission have tainted that one a bit. Set against that is his complete abandonment ofthe Iranian protests, the "resets" and his promise to surrender to the Russians even more after the election, the fact that unlike Bush, he actually did engage in an illegal war, the fact that he would prefer to buy oil form hostile (venezuela) and dubious (middle eastern) regimes than from friendly ones (canada) even though the canadian project would also have provided lots of jobs for americans as well.

From an outsiders pov I can't see the appeal.He was in Congress when Bush exploded the US budget.

As opposed to Obama, who was in the White house while Obama and congressional democrats spent more in 4 years than Bush spent in 8?

The difference, Obama realized his gaffe immediately,

No, the difference is that Obama gets a free pass because he is a democrat. Has anyone pointed out to him that the Falklands and the Maldives are in completely different oceans, thousands of miles apart, or that there are not in fact 57 states?

[Parsifal]

From an outsiders pov I can't see the appeal.He was in Congress when Bush exploded the US budget.

As opposed to Obama, who was in the White house while Obama and congressional democrats spent more in 4 years than Bush spent in 8?

Have you complained to the chairman of the House Budget Committee about that?
Are you remembering to subtract out the Bush legacy deficits from the budgets during the Obama years?
(Bush tax cuts, two unfunded wars, Medicare-D, corporate welfare, etc.)

Speaking of corporate welfare and corporate cronyism, each year the federal budget inherits a legacy of a heavily overbloated defense budget, currently at $750 billion. At the end of the Eisenhower administration (1960) when we were in the midst of the Cold War with the Soviet Union the defense budget (in today's dollars) was only $400 billion. And our "real" defense needs today are only a fraction of what they were then. American taxpayers are being taken over a barrel on this one.
Tell me again who the chairman of the House Budget Committee is?

This post has been edited by Parsifal: Aug 15 2012, 16:32

[Mister R]

Let me remind you that "ignorant fool" is your choice of words. You really shouldn't be putting words into people's mouths.

You described him as knowing nothing about anything and now you're trying to pretend that you weren't painting a picture of him (and Romney) as an ignorant fool. Try again.

The ones who hate Ryan enough to be influenced by him were never going to be the ones who might stay at home anyway.

I'm not convinced that's true at all.

Romney is basically now boxed into the corner of having to run on Ryan's budget. There's really no viable way to distance themselves from that and some of the stuff that's in that budget is potentially a huge incentive for people to come out and vote for Obama. It might be true to say that the name Paul Ryan alone isn't going to do much either way but the very specific policy agenda that comes bundled with him will.

As opposed to Obama, who was in the White house while Obama and congressional democrats spent more in 4 years than Bush spent in 8?

This is a nonsense statistic on almost every level imaginable.

[Parsifal]

Let me remind you that "ignorant fool" is your choice of words. You really shouldn't be putting words into people's mouths.

You described him as knowing nothing about anything and now you're trying to pretend that you weren't painting a picture of him (and Romney) as an ignorant fool. Try again.

If by "him" you mean Ryan, well, I think I've said enough about him to indicate that I think he's an intelligent man and he certainly understands the federal budget, cruel as his version may be.

As for the comment about "They know nothing about anything" I don't think it takes much of a leap of imagination to realize that I was talking about a body of 535 elected politicians with a few exceptions here and there. We don't have to get myopic about it.

And when quoting people it's always best to quote them with their own words and not insert convenient interpretations of what they said. I always make that effort and if I should ever slip up then please point it out to me.

I would add that I believe that if you gave everyone in the House and the Senate an economics 101 exam the passing rate would be dismal. And that's talking about people who vote on the federal budget.

Not convinced that a geography exam would be much better.

[Mister R]

As for the comment about "They know nothing about anything" I don't think it takes much of a leap of imagination to realize that I was talking about a body of 535 elected politicians with a few exceptions here and there. We don't have to get myopic about it.

Three points

1 – Paul Ryan is one of those elected officials
2 – We were discussing the experience level of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and how its a complete non-issue
3 – Given that (once again) you spoke in broad and ridiculous hyperbole that you believe there are exceptions is not clear

And this doesn't even get into the fact that you specifically referenced a lack of 'foreign policy experience' as a glaring weakness of the ticket which inherently paints the picture of the entire Romney campaign (or at the very least the ticket) being ignorant to foreign policy issues. And that's exactly what you were doing because that's the only reason anyone plays the 'experience' card. That's why the Republican's levelled that complaint at Obama four years ago and the same reason why in the debates McCain repeatedly accused him of being naïve.

And when quoting people it's always best to quote them with their own words and not insert convenient interpretations of what they said. I always make that effort and if I should ever slip up then please point it out to me.

When accusing someone of misquoting you, you should probably make sure they quoted you.

I'd also remind you that at no point have I said that you called Ryan (or Romney) an ignorant fool. What I said was that attempting to paint a picture of Ryan (or Romney) as an ignorant fool isn't particularly accurate. Although I will admit that when you questioned how I came to the conclusion that you were doing that I did in fact quote you – but once again I never attributed the phrase ignorant fool to you. Instead I posted the statements that led me to believe that this was the view you were opting to take on Ryan and the image you wanted to create of him.

This post has been edited by Mister R: Aug 16 2012, 00:35

[sanitynotincluded]

Romney is basically now boxed into the corner of having to run on Ryan's budget. There's really no viable way to distance themselves from that

Romney is no more bound to Ryan's budget than Obama was to Biden's Iraq plan, or Reagan was to Bush's economic policies. (I don't recall Ryan saying anything as potentially embarassing as "voodoo economics")

While it would be untenable for Romney to run on a platform of kicking the can down the road ever further and ignoring the entitlement time bomb, there has never been any indication that he wants to. If there are differences between the Ryan budgets as passed by the House for the last couple of years and the Romney proposal, it won't cause any major problems, as most reasonable observors recognise that no two people will hold identical positions, and the unreasonable ones will be voting democrat anyway

There are unlikely to be major differences, nor indeed would there have been if someone else had been selected, not because Romney has boxed himself into a corner with his pick, but because he had already come out publically in favour of the broad thrust of the Ryan budgets.

This is a nonsense statistic on almost every level imaginable.

When someone suggests that a person is unappealing because they were a low ranking congressman when the deficit and debt increased, it is quite sensible to point out that the impact of that is more than a little mitigated by the fact that the alternative is a ticket which increased the deficit and debt by more, in less than half the time, and had more control of events during the time in which it happened. This suggest that your imagination is confined to levels which are completely unhinged from reality.

[berenger79]

Ultimately Ryan is a sop to the extreme right. I'd like to think he will frighten off centrist voters, but the American VP role appears a complete irrelevance. I had to think for a second before remembering that Biden is currently Obama's spare change. I doubt Obama is losing sleep over Romney's new friend.

[Parsifal]

When someone suggests that a person is unappealing because they were a low ranking congressman when the deficit and debt increased, it is quite sensible to point out that the impact of that is more than a little mitigated by the fact that the alternative is a ticket which increased the deficit and debt by more, in less than half the time, and had more control of events during the time in which it happened. This suggest that your imagination is confined to levels which are completely unhinged from reality.

[Parsifal]

but the American VP role appears a complete irrelevance.

That becomes true mainly after the election.

But in the case of Romney/Ryan it could play out differently. It is still the case that nobody really knows what Romney is all about. He is secretive about his policy and tax proposals (he won't tell us what they are until maybe after the election - anyone can guess why that may be), he has avoided discussion about his religion, won't produce more tax returns, is defensive about his role at Bain Capital, etc. and is generally out of touch with the electorate. So attention may focus more on Ryan than Romney. With Ryan's dynamic personality and clear-cut policy proposals Romney may be challenged to stay center stage on the Republican ticket.

In focus groups, Romney is described as a tin man, a shell, an empty suit, vacuous, a multimillionaire in mom jeans. And that’s from supporters.

With Paul Ryan on the ticket, Romney becomes ever more hollow in comparison to the younger man of a cold-hearted-but-consistent philosophy.

It could very well happen that Romney chose a running mate who will overshadow him. The next few months will be interesting. There are minefields galore in this race.

This post has been edited by Parsifal: Aug 16 2012, 21:01

[CBEntr]

OOPSIE #2....

[Parsifal]

OOPSIE #2....

That's not an oopsie. That's an outright lie.
American voters should be giving up on hearing anything that is truthful coming from the Romney, and now the Romney/Ryan, camp.

[CBEntr]

OOPSIE #2....

That's not an oopsie. That's an outright lie.
American voters should be giving up on hearing anything that is truthful coming from the Romney, and now the Romney/Ryan, camp.

Parsi, my error.....you are correct, that was an outright lie, and he knew it. Read http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/17/p..._n_1799515.html