Posted on 08/11/2012 8:26:54 PM PDT by neverdem
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, right, and vice presidential candidate Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., wave at the crowd during a campaign event, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2012 in Norfolk, Va.
Thanks to Paul Ryan, Campaign 2012 is now a two-front class war.
Mitt Romney wanted the election to be a straight-up referendum on President Obama’s handling of the economy. Obama responded by framing the race as a choice between an incumbent middle-class champion and a corporate raider whose plans would only help the rich.
(RELATED: Romney's Pick of Ryan Brings Medicare to Center Stage)
Polls suggested Obama’s frame was winning out. Romney continues to trail, even though voters dislike Obama’s handling of the economy and trust Romney more to fix it, and even though Romney has spent a lot of time and money pushing a narrative of Obama hating success.
Poor and middle-class workers tolerate fewer attacks on the rich in America than in other developed nations; most of them still believe that if they work hard enough, they’ve got a shot to get rich, too. Still, it’s tough to win a class war squarely on the side of the wealthy. Aspirational voters don’t like the possibility that government policy is rigged to help the rich get richer and keep the middle class from getting ahead. That’s where Obama’s attacks have connected.
(RELATED: Strong Rapport with Romney Brings Ryan to Top)
That’s also why putting Ryan on the ticket is a chance for Romney to turn the class attacks back on Obama, reframing the election as a choice between a challenger who wants to boost the middle class and a president who wants to funnel hard-earned middle-class tax dollars to the poor.
America is about to learn a lot about Ryan’s signature legislative proposal, the House Republican budget. Democrats will howl about its goal of converting Medicare to a “premium support” system that gives seniors checks to buy health coverage. That’s the risk of picking Ryan, as Republicans well know.
(RELATED: Romney-Ryan Ticket Launch 'Blue State' Bus Tour)
Republicans, though, could use the Ryan budget as a class-war weapon. It reduces federal spending and brings down the debt – ideas middle-class voters love in concept. And it does so, over the long term, by carving huge chunks of spending growth off programs to help the poor. By 2050, the Congressional Budget Office estimated this year, the Ryan plan would reduce spending on Medicaid and the federal children’s health insurance program to one-quarter of the level it is otherwise projected to reach.
Tack on Romney’s proposed tax cut – similar to Ryan’s plan in both the size of its reduction in marginal rates and the lack of detail about what tax expenditures would go away to offset lost revenue – and you’re looking at a decidedly conservative class appeal: more money for middle class workers, less for the wards of the government.
(RELATED: Mitt's Veep App Gets Scooped)
Romney ran early iterations of this argument all last week, with his claims – refuted by independent fact-checkers – that Obama was stripping work requirements from federal welfare programs. Ryan scales up the argument, quickly. It’s no accident that Ryan’s introductory bus tour will roll through blue-collar Virginia under the banner of the “Romney Plan for a Stronger Middle Class.”
The strategy carries big risks. Worst case for Republicans, the move could fire up a less-enthused Democratic base and turn swing voters against them. This is what Democratic consultants Stan Greenberg, James Carville, and Erica Seifert predicted in July, in a strategy memo drawn from polling and focus groups focused squarely on Ryan’s plan.
“Obama’s lead against Romney more than doubles when the election is framed as a choice between the two candidates’ positions on the Ryan budget– particularly its impact on the most vulnerable,” the consultants wrote, adding that Obama makes “significant gains” among unmarried women, young voters, and Latinos when voters hear specific details about how the Ryan budget would affect education, the poor, and the elderly.
But in a best-case Republican scenario, the new frame puts Democrats on their heels and lets Romney steal the “hope” card from the former Hope and Change candidate.
Obama would be stuck defending welfare and Medicaid instead of jabbing Romney for high-income tax cuts. Republican donors and core conservative voters would be energized. Aspirational middle-class voters would see Romney as the optimist and Obama as the defeatist: The Republican wants them to get rich. The Democrat wants them dependent on the state. That’s a choice election the GOP would take any year.
The article fails to mention an important aspect to the Ryan pick:
Ryan is a fighter, and there is no doubt he will take the fight directly to Obama.
The fact that Romney picked a fighter means he’s a fighter too, and isn’t going to lay down and surrender the way McCain did.
I know what some are thinking, that McCain too picked a fighter VP and then not only surrendered but muzzled Palin to enable his own surrender.
But there’s a big difference. First of all, McCain didn’t pick Palin as a fighter, he picked her as a woman. He wanted a pair of high heels on his ticket and when Palin tried to be more than that, she was immediately shut down by her handlers.
Ryan is being picked as a fighter. I predict there are going to be no Romney handlers trying to hold Ryan back.
We are going to see a real knock-down drag out fight. It won’t be a fair fight (Obama has the entire media establishment on his side) but it will be a real fight. Unlike McCain’s faux fight.
Good post. ITA
Yes, this will be a heavyweight fight. God forbid we lose, but if we do, there will no option left but to prepare yourself and your family for hard economic times, including a future with no Social Security or Medicare benefits.
Romney/Ryan needs to be very clear on the choices we have. Then if they win, they have a mandate to propose the hard choices. If they lose, they will have kept the integrity of the GOP intact and no one can claim “we didn’t know” it was this bad.
Very good post #23. I really wish more people in FR would read that post and fully understand it.
And wow, 1997 for your sign-up date. I’m impressed. I didn’t realize FR was around in 1997. I thought it started in 1998.
“Romney/Ryan needs to be very clear on the choices we have.”
Agreed, and they need to do that ASAP or they will lose.
Yeah, I’m a real old timer. When Lewinsky broke, this was THE place to be. Back then, a whole day’s contributions were on one web page.
He made Obama look dumb in the Obamacare debate and proposed a budget that starts to make sense. Therefore, the left sees him as dangerous.
First choice was Sarah.
Since she didn’t run, my second choice was Newt.
I honestly don’t give a rat’s patootie what the disingenuous, biased media (DBM) says. I consider them to be almost always wrong or so overtly biased to the leftists that their “news” isn’t very newsworthy.
Romney isn’t the choice of the conservatives, he’s the choice of the RNC who shoved him down our throats because he’s beatable. Ryan is benign. He doesn’t excite the base the way that Sarah did and all he brings to Romney is a dead cat bounce.
He may be a good choice for the moderates but, overall, when you look closely at the “team” of Romney-Ryan, it isn’t te most exciting combination that the GOP could have put together. In essence, Romney-Ryan need to pray to God that most conservative voters don’t keep hitting the “snooze” button in November.
I believe competent is more important than exciting since exciting has no real meaning aside from what it is someone THINKS it means. On the other hand competent has only one meaning and it is the ability ndo satisfactorily do a job.
My personal belief is that a great majority of voting Americans want steadines and professionalism in thier leaders as well as competence. We have neither in the WH and the choice couild not be more clear or easier to make if you are serious about improvement.
Compare as far as ability based on a resume, Obama to Romney and Biden to Ryan. The things about Romney which so upset Conservatives here are not as important as they would be if we weren’t in such dire financial straights. It is all aout priorities.
I did not vote for Romney in the primary but my guy lost and now the most important thing to me is to get rid of Obama. To that end I would happily vote for a warm pile of dog sh*t to occupy the Oval Office.
John Roberts is competent and look what that bought us.
He was also considered a “good guy” and we are paying the price for that.
Before he switched sides to keep his political office, a lot of people thought that Arlen Specter was a competent, good guy.
If someone walks into your office to apply for a job and the best thing on their resume is that he is a “good guy”, is that enough to get the job?
This isn’t about hiring a good guy, this is about hiring someone who will literally be a heartbeat away from the POTUS. As a candidate, Romney is as weak as they come, going against an Obama.
Politicians say whatever they think people want to hear. They know that 90% or more of voters haven’t a clue and all they have to do to keep their job is not screw up in public. So, they say things that we want to hear. Tell us more pretty words.
I look at actions. Competence isn’t enough to win my vote. Being a good guy isn’t, either.
With respect to your vote - it really doesn’t matter for whom you vote - the next occupant of the WH will be a “warm pile of dog sh*t”!
I don't think Romney is a good guy, nor do I care. I ran a business back in the day with about 50 employees give or take. Aside from having the ability to at least be civil and have people willing to be in the same room as him or her my primary criteria for affirming a hire was his verified resume and his own ideas of what he could do for ME and my business. I hired people so I could make more money and not to give someone a job.
Romney has the resume and proved work experience to handle the job we need done today. As important as the social aspects of his resume are to you and others such as his positions on homosexuality, health care (Massachusetts), the Boy Scouts etc these are not priority issues at this time. The economy and jobs are the top prority along with controlling spending. My 1st or 2nd choice was not Romney but he is who we have and in any case he is light years better then Obama.
In WW2 Britain asked Churchill to jump back in the saddle and run the war. IMO he was the best leader I have ever seen or read about and he was correct chosen as the right man at the right time. After the war he was unceremoniously dumped as PM because priorities for the Nation had changed.
I have no problem doing the same with Romney or anyone else. Now we need a fiscally adept team to straighten out the mess. If they succeed we can concentrate on pushing Romney more and further right. If that fail then work at replacing him in 2016.
You say you look at actions rather than words. Good idea so look at Romney's history and that should show you he will bring proved success to the job. As for him being weak? I think you may have missed his performance during the primary. He can get nasty with the best of them when he believes he must.
Perhaps as you say either Romney or Obama are no better then “a warm pile of dog sh*t” but at least our wpods knows something about how an economy operates.
I appreciate your efforts to defend Romney, but I’m not impressed. He is a moderate who was crammed down down our throats by an arrogant and cynical RNC who has shifted so far to the left that they are now Democrat Lite.
Here is the defining issue about Romney for me. He created the model that zero used to shove ZeroCare on us. zero didn’t find the program under a turnip plant, he got it from Romney who, despite waht he “says”, has also “said” that he has no plans to repeal ZeroCare if he is elected! Why should he? This is the child of his baby we are talking about.
So, we can go back and forth about Romney and Ryan from now to November. I don’t like Romney, I don’t think he is the best choice that conservatives could have gotten and I think Ryan doesn’t bring that much to the ticket. In case you missed it, when Romney was asked on a Sunday talking head program about Ryan’s budget and the Medicare issue, Romney emphatically stated that they would be using HIS budget plan!
So, if Ryan has all this budget experience that Romney plans to ignore, what does he bring to the ticket that I should get so excited about??
As it stands now, I will vote in November. I just won’t vote for either of the two teams we will have to choose from for POTUS and VPOTUS.
Before you give me that tired argument about it being a vote FOR Obama, it isn’t. It doesn’t count FOR either one.
So, help JimRob conserve some of his bandwidth. You aren’t going to change my mind.
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