Paul Ryan Polling Worse Than Sarah Palin?
If a new Gallup poll is any indication, Paul Ryan was not a great pick.
If a new Gallup poll is any indication, Paul Ryan was not a great pick.
USAT/Gallup Poll: Paul Ryan gets low marks for VP
Americans don’t believe GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney hit a home run with his choice of Paul Ryan as a running mate, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, with more of the public giving him lower marks than high ones.
Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman, is seen as only a “fair” or “poor” choice by 42% of Americans vs. 39% who think he is an “excellent” or “pretty good” vice presidential choice.
Romney pollster Neil Newhouse said in a statement that the findings reflect the fact that Ryan, a House member since 1999, isn’t widely known.
USA TODAY/Gallup polls of registered voters after the announcements of running mates since Dick Cheney in 2000 all showed more positive reactions. Only Dan Quayle in a 1988 Harris Poll of likely voters was viewed less positively than Ryan, with 52% rating Quayle as a “fair” or “poor” vice presidential choice. The Ryan poll includes all adults, not just registered voters.
[…]
“All these numbers indicate is the simple fact that Congressman Paul Ryan was not a nationally known figure prior to being named as Gov. Romney’s vice-presidential pick,” Newhouse said. “Congressman Ryan’s selection reinforces the seriousness of the issues that will be debated in this election and President Obama’s failure to get Americans back to work and his inability to strengthen the middle class.”
Dave Weigel takes a look back:
The first few days of a veep candidate roll-out are often the apogee of his/her public image. We remember Sarah Palin’s 2008 debut as rough and nasty and personality-focused, which it largely was. But the first polls of Palin’s favorability, at the end of August 2008, had her favorables at a net +15 or so; the Washington Post/ABC and USA Today/Gallup polls taken right after her convention speech gave her, respectively, 58 percent and 53 percent favorable ratings. (Republicans liked to point out that this was higher than Barack Obama’s own favorability rating, which was momentarily sort of true.)
But there’s no shock or surprise or tabloid family story with Ryan. He is being introduced, basically, as a smart young guy who spent 14 years in Congress. He got there at age 28, Joe Biden got there at age 30. Both men, initially, were picks that barely moved the needle.
Kevin Drum doesn’t buy the “unknown” explanation:
Among non-political junkies (i.e., normal people) Jack Kemp wasn’t very well known. Cheney wasn’t well known. Biden wasn’t very well known. And Palin wasn’t well known. But initially, they all polled better than Ryan.
My guess is that we’re saying two things here. First, while both Palin and Ryan were largely unknown at the time of their announcement as running mate, Ryan has been taken seriously enough by the Democrats that they’ve already spent months working to bring down his public standing. Second, we’re getting more polarized by the minute. I don’t know that there’s anyone Romney could have picked that 42 percent of the public wouldn’t disapprove of at this point.
To the extent a vice presidential choice matters, I’m skeptical that Ryan was going to be helpful in bringing undecided voters to the Republican side. But there’s simply no question that he’s far, far better prepared to be president and to be on a presidential ticket than Palin was four years ago.
UPDATE: Moments after hitting Publish on the above, I see Jim Geraghty‘s link to Jon Cohen’s posting at WaPo (“Positive views of Ryan jump higher after pick“) showing Ryan’s inevitable post-announcement bump:
Little known nationally before Saturday’s announcement, favorable impressions of Ryan jumped 15 percentage points among the overall electorate with positive views soaring from 49 to 70 percent among conservative Republicans.
In Wednesday through Friday interviews, fully 45 percent of Americans expressed no opinion of Ryan, dropping to 30 percent on Saturday and Sunday. The increasing familiarity all went to the positive side of the ledger, giving Ryan an initial advantage in the sprint to define his candidacy.
Overall, in interviews after his selection, 38 percent of all Americans express favorable views of Ryan, 33 percent negative ones. (Before the the announcement, Ryan was somewhat underwater, scoring 23 percent favorable, 32 unfavorable.)
It’s worth noting, too, that the overall numbers are less important than the demographics. Most of Ryan’s “surge” is with people likely to vote for Romney anyway:
One of the largest movements on Ryan’s favorability numbers was the 21-point jump among conservative Republicans, but the initial movement was positive among independents as well, doubling from 19 to 39 percent. The shift among Democrats was similar in both a positive (up 10 percentage points on favorability) and negative direction (up eight on unfavorability).
Before the announcement, senior citizens split 28 percent apiece positively and negatively on Ryan, but afterward his favorable number shot to 46 percent with no change on the other side of the equation. Seniors are likely to get even more outsized attention in the coming months due to Ryan’s controversial proposal to change the Medicare entitlement. A Post-Kaiser poll released over the weekend shows broad, cross-party opposition to such a change.
As with Palin, it’s not the first weekend’s impressions that will matter (again, to the extent the Veep matters at all) but how it plays out after the long haul. It’s quite possible that American swing voters will find Ryan’s policies too extreme. But my gut instinct is that they’ll find the man himself likable and credible.
Image: Hey Girl, It’s Paul Ryan
What I don’t understand is why so many people are calling this a “bold move” for Romney – what’s “bold” about it? It sets in stone the kind of economic plan he was already pretty well committed to (as committed as Romney can be, anyway), and Ryan is wildly popular with the upper-crust punditry folk that have been driving his campaign all along… Someone like Bachmann, or Trump – that would have been “bold” (and many other things) but Ryan? “Unsurprising” is about the politest thing one can say about him.
I disagree with with Drum about Kemp. He’s a guy who had been around political circles since the late 1970s, before that he was in the NFL. Before he was picked by Dole in 1996, he had run for President in 1988 and served in President GHW Bush’s cabinet for four years. In an era before cable news was a big thing, he was frequently on television talking about the issues of the day, and he would campaign for Republicans across the country.
He was, in other words, far from an unknown.
I’d make the same argument about Cheney. This was the guy who, along with Colin Powell., was Bush’s closest adviser during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
Ryan has been in the public eye for a few years now, but we live in a far more polarized nation than we used to. It’s no surprise his numbers might be a little down initially.
I would tell it differently. Democrats saw “attack Romney via Ryan” as viable when all Romney had done was endorse his budget. Why? The budget is straight up everything Democrats have accused Republicans of supporting. Lower taxes for the rich, check. Higher taxes for the poor, check. Cuts to the safety net, check. A debasement of Medicare, check.
Democrats are not so frightened of that plan that they have to defend against it. It is a feast of opportunity.
I really don’t know why I have to remind you that the Ryan plan is all the things you oppose … except that you’ve apparently locked yourself in the basement and programmed yourself with “it’s a starting point, and that makes it all OK”
Another goof ball that has to knock down the female. Let’s be clear, Ryan is a man and there won’t be any tabloids attacks. Palin and Hillary are women and the corrupt MSM and tabloids went full in with attacks.
You people disgust me.
@john personna: Oh, I agree that Dems were running against the Ryan Plan for good reason. I’m just saying that, while people don’t know much about Ryan, Democrats have been running against his name for a while now; Palin by contrast was completely off the radar.
@john personna: That’s really a separate argument. My knee-jerk reaction to Palin, before she’d embarrassed herself by demonstrating herself an ignoramus on the stump, was that she didn’t pass the seriousness test. Whatever my disagreements with Ryan, he’s widely considered a serious policy guy who knows the issues back and forth.
I agree with Ryan that we’ve got to get entitlements under control before they bankrupt us. I’m skeptical that the answer is a voucher system. But we’re not going to privatize Medicare any more than we did in 2004 after Bush got re-elected running on that platform. So, yeah, it’s a starting point. I’d take Bowles-Simpson, for example, as a decent compromise that will piss everyone off.
The chances of USAT/Gallup not coming up with negative readings for Ryan fell somewhere between zero and nada. I mean, come on, they included “all adults,” not even the obligatory registered voter sample, much less likely voters. Agendas are not merely for meetings.
In any case, Ryan was a poor choice, but not because of what Zombieland at large thinks or doesn’t think. What matters are actual voters and for them it’s a function of gravitas (mere representatives have little to none), Electoral College math (OH has double the number of votes of WI and Fla. nearly triple that sum) and age-based demographics (Medicare is a touchy subject for seniors, Ryan’s plan is a tough sell and easily can be demonized, and to boot Ryan looks like he should still be a grad school).
But this is myth.
He’s not a serious policy guy. He’s a fraud, selling a fantasy.
Palin didn’t have much of a record to attack, while Ryan has a relatively well known and fairly easy to attack record, so they aren’t really comparable. Even if it eventually became obvious that Palin didn’t pass the seriousness test, that is still a much more drawn out process than it will be for Ryan. “He wants to end Medicare” isn’t a concept that takes voters long to understand.
If a Gallup poll is any indication…..
Well, that’s the problem, right? The predicate. Pure crap.
As a seasoned investor I never listen to anyone but my training, my experience, my trusted partners and my guts. I trust my bones,and it’s made me wealthy. I watch the left freaking out and laugh. Oh,and “independents” like JP, snicker.
I was chided for my dead grandma reference in another thread. Well, here comes the dead grandma argument. Enough said. It’s all they’ve got. What a pathetic crew.
Republican Vicitimization
MSM complaints
Rinse
Repeat
@James Joyner:
We have plenty of time to explore this before November, but I suspect that your positions are mathematically closer to the “pre-compromised” positions offered by President Obama.
He is not offering a Gore Vidal budget, as a “starting point.”
In the case of Medicare he’s willing to means-test, but also wants to broaden the tax base supporting the plan.
@James Joyner: We are not going to get entitlements, the deficit, or anything else under control until we deal with unemployment. As far as I’m aware the Galt and Gekko ticket (props to Krugman) has made no proposal to deal with unemployment except a lot of trickle down, supply side blatant nonsense. Our current Republicans seem congenitally unable to deal with unemployment. Or is it just unwilling?
Likeable…maybe.
Credible? I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
Ryan claims he can cut taxes without loss of revenue by closing loopholes…but he doesn’t say which ones.
Ryan claims he can cut discretionary spending to levels not seen since Calvin Coolidge…but he doesn’t say how.
I fail to see how any of that is any more credible than Romney’s economic plan that is MATHEMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.
@Drew:
Me and Mike Lofgren and all the other lapsed Republicans.
@gVOR08…
Not to quibble with you…or Krugman for that matter…but I think it’s Gekko and Galt.
My gut tells me they won’t find him quite so credible around about the 17th time he defends R/R tax proposals by saying, “Trust me, we can make it work, we just can’t tell you how.”
Right, that’s just it: even if you buy the basic ideology behind such proposals, the plan is still fantasy.
Can I play that game? Because gosh, I’m sure I could come up with a deficit reduction “plan” that would work if I got to assume absurd growth rates (“dynamic scoring” FTW!), unrealistically low unemployment figures, and other magical thinking. I bet I could even do it without screwing the bottom ~80% of the population so I could cut Mitt Romney’s taxes some more.
@gVOR08: Obama has been president four years. What’s his plan for ending unemployment? How’s it working out for him?
@C. Clavin: I’m not a fan of the “close loopholes” explanation, which ranks right up there with “end fraud, waste, and abuse.” But I fully get why a politician isn’t going to put forth detailed cuts in a campaign platform, either; it’s just too easy to run against those cuts, especially if you’re not proposing any hard choices of your own.
@OzarkHillbilly:
On that, I noticed this in the news stream and found it amusing:
Romney wants ‘something dramatic’ to aid economy
Self-aggrandizement much???
Do you have to stop and rub one out every time you walk by a window and notice your reflection?
Do you have rotater-cuff problems from patting yourself on the back so much?
What a f’ing blowhard.
@gVOR08:
Who would benefit politically if the government was able to lower unemployment? If you can answer that, you’ve answered your question about the GOP.
As Tsar Nicholas notes above, the Gallup poll is an “All Adults” poll. I’m not sure how useful it is in determining the potential impact of the Ryan selection or how the voting public feels about it.
Fiscal stimulus. It helped, but wasn’t enough.
Look, the GOP position on taxes, even after all we’ve seen, is STILL that the rich pay too much and the poor/middle class pay too little. That’s the fundamental argument. Every GOP plan reflects this belief.
And the Dem response boils down to “what about Clinton-era rates was so terrible?”
I can understand the “now is not the time to raise taxes” argument, which is fundamentally Keynesian in nature. I cannot understand this argument from the party that claims/pretends/sincerely believes (?) that Keynes was totally wrong.
@Drew:
Jesus Christos Drew, can you ejaculate all over my screen in any more of a self-congratulatory masturbatory screed?
@James Joyner:
I don’t think this game, where you don’t do what he suggests, and then blame him anyway, is too honest.
Obama Jobs Plan Voted Down By Senate
You mean like sequestration?
Or the Medicare cuts in the PPACA that Republicans love to mislead about?
BTW, Obama’s jobs bill was a good example of a “pre-compromise”
Seriously. Republicans are all about the tax cuts, but they can’t take them when Obama offers them.
@James Joyner:
How about a little historical perspective, Dr. Joyner? How about a modicum of intellectual honesty?
When he took office, the country was losing 700,000 jobs per month. We’re now in double digits in consecutive quarters of a growing (albeit slowly), and increasing employment.
Remember this…
What distinguishes this jobs recovery from others is the sheer scale of the job loss that preceded it. The economy has regained 3.6 million jobs since employment hit bottom in February 2010, but it is still missing nearly 10 million jobs — 5.2 million lost in the recession and 4.7 million needed to employ new entrants to the labor market. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that at the average rate of job creation in the last three months, it would take until the end of 2017, fully 10 years from the start of the Great Recession in December 2007, to return to the prerecession jobless rate of 5 percent.
And there is no guarantee we will ever get there. It took about four years to close the job gaps created by the recessions that began in mid-1981 and mid-1990. In the tepid expansion after the 2001 recession, the job gap had still not closed by 2007.
Without good jobs, families certainly can’t power the economy with spending. Incomes always fall in recessions, but they usually rebound and then reach a new high. That didn’t happen after the 2001 recession. Analysis of government data by Moody’s Analytics shows that median household income, in 2011 dollars, peaked at $56,000 in 2000, and did not rebound to that level. When the Great Recession hit, income fell again. Though there has been some progress in the last two years, median income, now at $52,000, is about where it was in 1997.
At the same time, home equity — for most families, the most important store of wealth — has been devastated by the housing bust, with $7.4 trillion wiped out since home prices peaked in 2006. Nascent signs of life in the spring selling season are welcome, but it will take a far stronger economy, or far more aggressive antiforeclosure efforts, to substantially rebuild lost equity anytime soon. Even at that, many of the nearly 12 million homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than the homes are worth will never get above water.
Without a revival in jobs, income and home equity, other indicators of recovery — like a rising stock market and more consumer spending — largely reflect gains among the top echelon of earners. Such lopsided growth can make for good numbers, but doesn’t presage broadly higher living standards.
So how to nurture the recovery, such as it is? If long-term unemployment remains high through 2012, Congress will need to renew federal jobless benefits beyond their expiration at the end of the year. If incomes and spending remain constrained, tax relief for low- and middle-income earners will also need to be extended. The high-end Bush-era tax cuts should be allowed to expire, with the money going toward programs that have more economic impact. Congress, which has committed to deficit reduction starting in 2013, must avoid heedless cuts, in favor of minimal and balanced tax increases and spending reductions. And the Federal Reserve must resist calls for premature tightening.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/opinion/sunday/still-crawling-out-of-a-very-deep-hole.html
@john personna:
Heeheeheehehhehheh…. Thanx John. I needed that.
@OzarkHillbilly:
😉 glad to help
They were probably the wrong kind of tax cuts (tax cuts that would matter to little people – which would be the most stimulative kind of course, since they’d get spent).
The problem is the reflexively obstructionist opposition party.
I’d say that 27 or 28 straight months of private sector job creation is working out OK. Now if we could invest in some infrastructure and get some construction going, and then get some aid to states so they can start to put teachers and cops and firemen back to work…it would be working out well for the people of the United States. Unfortunately the ideologues in the Republican party won’t allow that to happen…because they see political gain in preventing it.
Whatch how fast both of those things happen if Gekko and Galt are elected.
@john personna:
Obama’s jobs plan that was voted down, was not even liked by democrats, similar to the budget that he submitted — that one having nary a democratic vote.The democratic party has had trouble standing behind Obama’s lack of leadership, especially in the areas of domestic policy.
Obama’s jobs bill blocked by Reid over lack of Democratic support
Oops, can’t blame it all on the republicans, JP!
@James Joyner:
As I’ve said this morning, that reduces to “trust me, I’m a Republican.”
That isn’t going to sell well with the lapsed Republicans, those who have gone independent, and I can’t imagine that it is going to play with long-time independents either.
I know you are all about the “lean” and assert that lean means there are no real independents, but that isn’t the way our minds work. We may lean, but we aren’t a locked in vote. We want to hear those plans, and we want to grade them on merits.
As I’ve said, “trust me” kind of burns in the post Bush/Cheney era.
@jan:
Epic Fail. That’s literally the worst argument I’ve ever seen. John posted a link showing the bill had majority support (vote was 51-48) on October 11th, and your response was to worry there maybe wasn’t enough support on October 5th.
@jan:
My link said there were 2 Democratic defections and it went down 51 to 48.
Not very honest to say “not even liked by democrats” when they were for it, 48 to 2.
So the Republicans were against it 51 to 0, right?
And you say “can’t blame it all on the republicans, JP!”
Wow. No spinning there. No, none at all.
@C. Clavin:
More like watch how fast we move on to saber rattling vs insert middle east country here after G & G get elected to distract from doing any of what you mention. The only form of stimulus that Repubs understand are local state pork to reward their buddies. National politics doesn’t pay as much attention to that stuff and is therefore easier to hide.
@jan: LOL, you really got him there, Jan. Take that, pesky JP!
@David M: Shhhhhhhhh….. You’ve caught on to Jan’s super secret plan….. Obfuscate, obfuscate, obfuscate….. If you say it too loud, every one else will catch on….
Does looking at Paul Ryan give other people the creeps also? Or is it just me?
Every time i look at face close ups of his “vampire pale” skin with those “zombie sparkly” blue eyes under that thick black hair, i get a strange inner feeling that i should go pour a ring of salt around my home, check my locks, and hang a picture of Barry Goldwater on the wall.
@john personna: I’m at the point where I want spending cuts, loophole closures and everything else agreed to prior to any discussion over tax cuts. It seems as though tax cuts go through and no spending cuts happen. I want the collective public to say what they want in terms of government goods and service so we know what to tax for.
@john personna:
I’m not Odograph. No, I’m really not. I’m not Odograph, believe me. I’m not a liar, really, I’m not. I’m not Odograph. Trust me, believe me. Never heard of him……
Snicker.
Go to bed. Credibility quotient: zero.
James, I’m glad you were able to include that last minute WAPO in your analysis, giving your piece more balance. However, Ryan has been on the ticket for only a few days, to make an impression on quite a large swathe of people who only know him as a republican.
The democrats, though, are wasting no time trying to cast him as a mean-spirited guy. However, Ryan will be on the road for months displaying who he is, and the unknown qualities about him will be revealed. What people will see is a youthful, articulate, brilliant, optimistic reformer. He will talk about opportunity versus status quo, relishing giving the right to succeed or fail back to the individual, rather than capitulate to government as a ‘big brother’ savior. There will be a stark difference in philosophies that now dominate the country — that of social progressivism (supported by the majority at OTB), or conservatism. Ryan will also be able to explain his medicare ideas, as applying to those under 55 years — far from the age of granny. Furthermore, according to his plan, there would be no change for anyone enrolled before 2023. OTOH, Ryan will also be able to expose how Obama’s plan is taking monies out of medicare to fund his ACA.
Basically there will be much to discuss about policies in this campaign — both those that Obama/Biden are hawking and those that Romney/Ryan have in mind. Like on the 60 Minute interview, Romney said with much enthusiasm: “I love policy. I love solving tough problems.’ It’s ironic that this competing ticket to the current administration is looking forward to turning things around, while all Obama can do is look backwards and blame others. The job of POTUS has obviously been way over Obama’s pay grade!
@Drew:
Drew, there’s a lot more than “dead grandma” to this.
Ryan’s Plan proposes to reduce the top marginal tax rate by 27% – from 34% to 25%, while increasing defense spending and (by their own numbers) we’d still have very wide deficits for the next ten years.
That sounds a lot like like doubling down on the Bush years when we cut taxes twice while aging 2 wars and passing a Medicare Prescription Drug Program – all deficit funded.
Then we get to the “dead grandma” part – beginning the privatization of Medicare, with a private voucher program that will transfer hundreds of billions of dollars in expenses on to retired Americans.
@Drew:
Drew, up until this moment, I thought you were completely without even a single shred of self-awareness.
Personally, I still think anyone who can’t help telling the world how rich and perfect he is (as you do) is actually a 24 yr old college drop out living in his parents basement still wearing his pj’s at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, who’s biggest “deal” he ever negotiated was for a used Ford Taurus that doesn’t even run anymore….
@jan:
Will Paul Ryan be talking about the endless deficits that his “Plan” projects?
@OzarkHillbilly:
If that’s your fantasy, have at it. You got a perty mouth, Hillbilly?
I’m rich, I have a history of great decisionmaking in the investment world. It’s how I make living. Its the real world. Not some internet site. I’m sorry you find that distressing. I suspect your track record is, well, lesser. you might want to look in the mirror, and have a serious self assessment. Because you know I have you pegged.
This of course will get about 20 thumbs down, which tells you exactly the deptths this sight has fallen to. Trash.
I bid you adieu . But have fun fondling each other…..
@Drew:
Try not to go all pathetic on us … we might have to start bucking you up.
@OzarkHillbilly: Unicorns!
@Drew: Have fun fondling yourself.
@David M:
@john personna:
@slimslowslider:
The article I posted was about Reid withholding the vote because he didn’t have enough dem support. It was written on Oct. 5th 2011. It was finally brought up for a vote Oct. 11th, after Reid undoubtably had whipped more dems into alignment, and so the vote was more favorable, even though it wasn’t enough for passage. Nothing I said belies the fact put forth, that the dems were not enthusiastically behind Obama’s jobs bill.
I made it easy for you guys to read, posting it all here!
@ Jan…
Ryan is not a Conservative by any accepted meaning of the word. (hint…neither are you…by a long shot)
He is in fact a Radical ideologue…as evidenced by his own words…and his own policies.
Radical Ideology is not Conservative. Ayn Rand…Ryan’s joie do vivre…was not a Conservative. Buckley ran her out of the party along with the John Bircher’s. Y’all have brought both of them back. Not Conservative. Not at all.
Ryan’s economic plan increases the deficit. That is not Conservative.
Voodoo economics…the defining charachteristic of both Romney’s and Ryan’s plans…is not Conservative.
Ryan voted for every single one of the things that are currently the biggest drivers of the deficit…the unpaid for Bush Tax Cuts, the unpaid for Medicare Expansion, the unpaid for Wars of Choice that the Republicans couldn’t finish. None of those things were, or are, Conservative. Certainly exploding the debt and squandering a budget surplus is not Conservative.
You seem to not understand the meaning of Conservatism. Perhaps you should try to understand it before you spend all your time typing meaningless prattle.
@jan:
How has the ACA hurt people on Medicare? How are their benefits changing for the worse?
Ooooooh….more Drew spooge.
What a phony mother f’er.
@jan:
I still think 51 to 48 was close, but let’s leave it as what it is for a moment.
At what point is it a ding of the President’s policies that even more reviled politicians in Congress can’t support them?
Presidential approval rating: 49% (term average to date)
Congressional approval rating: 16% (July 2012)
I think you might be missing something here. I think everyone who faults Obama for what the hated Congress won’t do might be missing something.
You can’t think of Paul Ryan without thinking about Ayn Rand. Kung Fu Monkey had this to say:
@Drew: So what grade did you get in the Donald Trump School of Self-Aggrandizing Bullsh!t?
With the singular exception of The Donald, I have never come across a single human being who was so rapturously in love with singing his own praises.
And I worked in Hollywood for 25 years.
@JJ
Those aren’t mutually exclusive, right? ‘Credible’ can mean, “Hey, he believes what he says — and that scares the shit out of me!!”
I know they’ll find him likable. Hell, I find him likable. But in a perverse way, this works against Romney by showing what a stiff, unlikable guy he is. Ryan ain’t gonna do a lot for Mitt’s favorability methinks. And folks, and least non-insane folks, vote for president, not vice-president.
@al-Ameda:
Will Paul Ryan be talking about the endless deficits that his “Plan” projects?
No, he is already talking about the 5 trillion dollar deficit Obama has encumbered the country with in just under 4 years. He is already talking about the worst recovery, the longest UE rate over 8%, the despair of people being out of work for so long. There’s lots to talk about dealing with what is already in place under Obama.
As far as Ryan’s own budget, here is something Erskine Bowles had to say about Ryan and his plan:
Jan – you are so stupid…I couldn’t even make it up if I tried.
First – Ryan’s plan takes the same money out of Medicare administration costs that Obama does…so I’m not sure exactly what you think Ryan is going to expose.
And yes…of course it pays for the ACA…that’s how budgeting works. You shift money from one place that you determine is not efficient to pay for something somewhere else that you think adds value.
In any case the PPACA reduces the deficit…and is already reducing Medicare costs…and has extended the programs life-expectancy. Neither Gekko or Galt have an answer for sky-rocketing Helath Care costs or the 30 million un-insured. Actually Romney had an good idea…and it works great…then he became a Ideological Radical like you.
@john personna:
I still think 51 to 48 was close, but let’s leave it as what it is for a moment.
You’re skirting the original comment I shared about the dems not being behind this jobs plan at all. It was only under political pressure did they have a dog and pony vote, allowing for it to fail so they could blame republicans, but not having it fail so much as to embarrass the president like he was with his budget bill.
Why can’t you just admit an honest point for once? If such a ruse had happened under, let’s say Bush, you would be all over how fake this vote really was, rather than talking about how close it was!
@C. Clavin:
As Jan would probably say,
@jan:
Do you really believe Erskine? Because after his praise, this was his conclusion:
Are you and Ryan peddling one of those impossible plans?
One that only cuts spending and does not raise revenue?
@ Jan…
This Obama deficit you are always talking about never happened.
If you have to lie to make your point…that makes your point worthless…and you a liar.
You are a liar.
http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-05-22/commentary/31802270_1_spending-federal-budget-drunken-sailor
@jan:
Jeebus. You are really going to rest everything on 2 Democratic defections out of 50?
A 4 percent opinion?
@jan:
that’s amusing because, Ryan’s Plan projects deficits of the same magnitude from 2013 to 2023.
Polls on people nobody knows, in the first moments of a reveal, are meaningless. Ask again in a week. Still won’t matter. Ask again in two weeks and it may matter.
@Drew:
My god man you’re so rich you cannot afford a simple spell check or be bothered to use the proper word?
@Drew:
Yes, Drew, it’s everyone else, it’s not you. It’s not that your entire argument on every topic is:
And when challenged your follow up is:
And when asked for some rationale, any rationale, to back up your position, you pout, attack all around you and flee the room.
@Drew:
Wow, Drew…. I did not think you were that virile but my screen is now double layered with your fantasies. I take it back. You are not 24 yrs old, only a 15 yr old could spew that much.
Heeheeehee…. I don’t find it distressing, I find it hilarious, Drew, you are a caricature. The real world is filled with blood, sweat, and tears. Tell me…. just exactly how much did Daddy leave you?
Ya know what Drew? I have to look in the mirror every day. And you know what? I earned everything I got (however little it may be) with blood, sweat and more than a few tears. But you would not know about any of those things. Would you?
Yeah, I am just a (presently) unemployed Union Carpenter, 54 yrs old and hurting in ways you could not dream of, with a wife who is the love of my life AND who has a job that comes with health insurance, I wake up every morning at 3:30 am (cause I am used to it)(and in a certain amount of pain that keeps me awake) and go to work on making our 12 & 1/2 acres a little more supportive for our old age every day…. WHICH…. god willing…. we will reach.
You however, are a titan of industry.
Tell me, everybody, who has the more believable story?
@john personna:
You are side-stepping what I said, and going in another direction, entirely. It has NOTHING to do with the final vote, but all the political maneuvering, and arm-twisting that was going on about this unpopular Obama bill, that you earlier were touting as being killed by the Republicans! It was manipulated, by the dems, having small dem defections disallowing passage, a ploy setting up the other party to take disingenuous heat so someone like you can complain about it in the future.
@jan:
I’m confused, isn’t a bill just a starting point?
@jan: Let me be the first to say…. BULLSHIT! The final vote tells the tale Jan. If you can not spin that, (and you can’t) do us the favor of shutting up.
@jan:
I’m sorry, I am having trouble following. Final votes pretty much matter in a democracy. They matter more than anything, really.
If this is about the quality of the President’s ideas then I think the party split (with 2 defections) and the low congressional approval rating would be pretty darn important.
I’m trying to be generous here, but it really looks like your argument is “we can totally blame Obama because 2 Democrats failed to come through.”
It looks like you’ve got the binoculars reversed, and think you’ve found a little place to focus, some fragment of the picture where you win.
If we can see that game, it isn’t such a bit win.
@David M:
Yeah, funny contrast.
drew:
You haven’t given us enough information to conclude that you’re actually rich; you’ve only given us enough information to conclude that you’re actually a jerk. But that’s a far more important thing to know about someone, so thanks for telling us what we needed to know. Your inadvertent candor is appreciated.
@Drew: I don’t think you get this “Internet” thing… we’re all here, on a blog, posting under pseudonyms. Unless somebody volunteers their actual personal information (which I don’t suggest), nobody here can really check anyone else’s claims to knowledge or experience in any subject we discuss. All we can judge each other by is what we say here and how we say it. Whether or not you’re rich and successful in the Real World, down here it’s very clear that you are an emotional child and an intellectual pissant. And no matter how much you think we should bow down and respect your opinions, that will never happen until you change something yourself.
G’night, sweetcheeks.
But I liked Sarah Palin. I didn’t want her as vice-president, but she’s welcome to my home anytime for crawfish macque-choux and commiserating about wayward children.
This guy leaves me cold.
James wrote: ” . . . Ryan has been taken seriously enough by the Democrats that they’ve already spent months working to bring down his public standing.”
Have Democrats been trying to “bring down” Ryan’s public standing or have they been shedding light on Ryan’s plan? If the plan itself is the cause of Ryan’s public standing being down, that is not the fault of Democrats. That’s Ryan’s fault.
It will be interesting to see some numbers after the Romney/Ryan “Farewell to Medicare” tour has been on the road for a month or so.
Amen. I met with some clients the other day, both of them are rich, neither are dicks, and they never sound like an insecure 14 year old who is trying to impress other kids. Sad.
@ Jan…
How do you square that with the fact that we all put Ryan through school, we all have supported him ever since, and we all pay for his sleeping accommodations every night, we all pay for his gym membership and his meals?
The facts and your ideology never quite line up do they?
How do you justify that in your mind?
My guess is that by the time the Republican convention ends after a couple of weeks of Team Obama definition, Ryan ‘s approval ratings will be under water for good. He’ll be known as the man who wants to privatize Social Security, end Medicare, and and have the boss’s income taxed at less than 1 per cent. And oh yeah, like his boss, he has no plan to reduce unemployment.
What is he reforming? The damage he helped to cause when he voted for budget busting bills during the Bush era – one after another, after another?
@ C. Clavin…
Despite the protestations of sycophants, like Jan and Doug and James, this duo of Gekmo and Galt are phonies and grifters.
Ryan has spent his entire adult life getting rich on the largess of the Government. He makes a salary of around $170k paid by all of us. In exchange for that he has gotten two laws passed in the last 13 years. One was the naming of a Post Office. We spent the last year throwing protesters out of public parks…but we all pay for Ryans sleeping accommodations every night.
Romney is a corporate welfare queen. He has gotten rich on the largess of the rest of us. He takes Government money, then walks away…leaving taxpayers in the lurch… The less fortunate of them getting f’ed out of pensions and insurance…but Romney pocketing millions.
These two are hypocrites and con men. They are selling something they don’t even believe. And people like Jan and Doug and James are buying it.
@OzarkHillbilly:
You jest keep tellin yourself that………….dumb fuck.
Looks like I’ve accomplished my mission of shaking the animal cages at the zoo.
Sorry folks, variously, I’m filthy rich. I’m sorry that bothers you. I once, at age 23′ looked out over Lake Michigan one night, January, midnight shift at the steel mill and below zero, and asking myself “is this my life?”.
No. No effing way.
Got my shit in order. And did something about it. You guys should take a lesson. Bitches whine. Men do do something about it.
You boys are are just whining weak bitches.
Again, I’m sorry this distresses you pussys.
But the truth cannot be denied. Have fun on your Internet site making good on your personal failures.
I always love it when people question my financial means. I’m ether a prick, a braggart, or a fraud or……
Oh, yeh, maybe I am who I say I am, and I build businesses, create jobs, and do more than 95% of the assholes on this website do.
Bummer, fuckwads.
@Drew:
Well, Drew, my “personal failures” involve a 33 year marriage, 2 interesting children, 150 or so published books, 35 million or so sold, a movie deal with Sony, a possible TV deal in the works, Hollywood producers asking me to develop ideas for them, publishers asking me to get into packaging, being called a genius on a fairly regular basis (no, I don’t take it to heart) and an income of just a bit under a million dollars this year. And I’m sitting here on my deck in exclusive Tiburon, gazing out at an unobstructed view of San Francisco.
And I suspect some of the others here are also not exactly losers.
You sound awfully shrill for a man on top of the world. What happened? Bad investment?
It’s time for some “Best of Bithead”!
Bithead says:
Saturday, August 30, 2008
And here he is gloating about the coming Obama defeat:
Sunday, November 2, 2008 at 13:34
Hmm. Drew has been drinking again.
drew (earlier):
I love how the people who say things like this always come back to prove they never meant it. It’s a big clue that their other statements are equally trustworthy.
The misogyny is a nice touch.
Rats! I was gonna say lol:), but something got fouled up….
Or do a…hmmm..
That’s the same speech where Bowles lavished praise on Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott and David Brooks. So there are a few reasons to take his words with a grain of salt (link, link).
This made me laugh. My son forwarded it to me:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/admit-it-i-scare-the-everloving-shit-out-of-you-do,29160/
Given the reaction of so many on the left, I’m wondering if it’s more truth than satire.
Well, “Moderate” Mom, there is truth in it, but not in the way you think.
Republicans do scare Democrats.
We remember Bush.
We remember how he led us to the brink of a depression. Something that would make today’s economic problems look like cotton candy and puppies. We remember Katrina – how Bush and McCain were partying as the hurricane bore down on New Orleans. We remember how Bush gave up searching for Bin Laden, and started a disastrous war in Iraq. We remember how he cooked the books to hide the cost.
We remember “deficit hawk” Ryan voting for every budget busting bill that came before him. We remember the GOP putting Sarah Palin, who is now apparently persona non grata, in a positon to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. We remember McCain saying that Bin Laden could not be touched if he was in Pakistan. We remember the Ryan Plan passing in the house. I have an elderly mother and mother in law. They need health care, there are no ice floes in California I can put them on.
I could go on for a while, but its late. The point is, yes, Republicans are scary. Hell yes.
Mitt was in the heartland today, visiting the real folks who are suffering under Obama.
Mitt on the farm
I guess Romney is working research on car elevators into his campaign schedule…
Drew, modesty is most becoming in the well-to-do.
Ah yes. The script holds. Drew appears, declaims from on high, gets pushback and has nothing but insults in response. And, of course, it ends with The Flounce (in this instance, a rather extended flounce).
Just being rich (and, not that it matters, but I bet Drew is actually rich) doesn’t make someone brilliant, and it certainly doesn’t make them wise.
As for Mr. Ryan, a little something I hadn’t known about him:
The Fed has, at least theoretically, a “dual mandate” to keep inflation and unemployment from becoming too high. Hence things like QE.
He also wanted to tie the dollar to some sort of bundle of goods, which is basically a psuedo gold standard. It’s the old “OMG, fiat currency! Ahhhhh!”
It’s funny. It used to be that when we pointed to Ayn Rand, Republicans would say that she was some fringe character. Oh, she’s that crazy libertarian, you can’t tar us with her.
Ryan believes that stuff. Oh, I know, he partially back his Rand love (when people pointed out her anti-theistic* views), but that was just running away from the atheism for the fundy crowd. He loves her economic ideas. He’s been enthusiastically promoting them for years, and has sponsored bills trying to put them into effect. It’s all there on the record.
And this has become mainstream GOP thinking. Pointing this out is not a smear.
* – she wasn’t just an atheist. She was a strident one who thought religion was awful. IIRC, there were extended rants about it (not that extended rants were uncommon in her work). I don’t mind that, being an atheist with a pretty low opinion of religion myself, but YMMV.
moderatemom:
The article you are citing says this:
Ryan does a good job of pretending to be that person, but everyone is going to know that he’s not that person. He voted for all of Bush’s major budget-busting actions. Everyone is going to know this, which means that everyone is going to know that he’s a fraud.
And even if there are people who insist on seeing Ryan “as a man with deep convictions he will stand up for, no matter what,” this is just going to make Mitt look bad, by comparison. Because even Mitt’s supporters realize that he is the antithesis of “a man with deep convictions he will stand up for, no matter what.”
A lot of people in the GOP wanted Ryan to run, and I’m sure that in the GOP right now there are a lot of people who wish they could reverse the ticket. In many ways, Ryan is a stronger candidate than Mitt. By picking Ryan, Mitt made sure that people are going to be reminded of how weak Mitt looks, in comparison.
Ryan’s plan:
Cut the top income rate (more – not an extension of the Bush tax cuts. More cuts)
Close unspecified loopholes
???
Profit!
Except that nobody can make the numbers work such that it doesn’t end up being a huge tax cut for the tippy top. There simply aren’t enough “loopholes” to close. If you are shooting for a revenue-neutral reform, you have to cut/eliminate things like the mortgage interest rate deduction and other things the working & middle class use*. Which means it pushes the tax burden down the income ladder, in a big way.
That’s before you even get to the cuts he wants to make (some of which are also unspecified, like projecting non-military discretionary spending dropping to absurd levels w/o saying how), and the increased military spending.
Terrible priorities coupled with fantasy math. Call it voodoo is probably an insult to voodoo.
* – not that it really matters, but in principle I’m not against phasing out such tax deductions (I think the mtg interest deduction may do more harm than good), but that would have to be part of a plan that wasn’t designed to make the middle class pay more and the rich pay less. The bottom ~80% of the country is already struggling. The top ~5% (particularly 1%) are doing great. In that context – context is key! – it makes no sense to cut taxes at the top, again, while increasing taxes at the bottom/middle. Unless, of course, you’re a Randian ideologue.
@Rob in CT:
Yes, and of course many of the numbers to make it “work” were just “supplied:”
The most egregious thing here is the “supplied” growth numbers. It isn’t about self control, or reserve, or testing your own hypothesis, you simply supply growth numbers based on your faith in the cuts, and use those.
Mitt’s proposal is even more a pig in a poke.
Gingrich has supplied the campaign message: Do Not Trust CBO or State Department
Which means the election comes down to how many solid partisans there are, people who will reject CBO accounting, and just take it on faith.
Oh oh. David Stockman has a lot of cred:
Paul Ryan’s Fairy-Tale Budget Plan
Excellent, thank you. More from Stockman:
Ryan has picked up on the Romney campaigns
distortionlie about what Obama said…”you didn’t build that”…but Ryan fails to mention that he is heir to a family fortune built on Government work.Ryan Incorporated Southern…just one subsidiary of the family business…states on its Web site;
Ryan Incorporated Central…another subsidiary…has had at least 22 defense contracts with the federal government since 1996 including one worth $5.6 million.
So much for individualism and not relying on the Government.
rob:
Here’s the main problem Gecko/Galt are trying to solve: the poor aren’t poor enough and the rich aren’t rich enough. All their plans and positions lead back to this underlying philosophy.
There are so many problems with the posting but I would only address the principal one: E-.B fixes a problem that barely requires fixing (SSA) and ignores a problem that does require addressing (SSA)- does sound like a Republican plan and good to see JJ drinking the kool-aid.
In addition to making a family fortune off Government work, The Boston Globe today reports that;
http://bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2012/08/13/paul-ryan-district-supported-energy-funds-while-decrying-stimulus-program/qkXIN2eHgyt4yyBSH81WEJ/story.html
This is supposed to be a man of principle???
@C. Clavin:
Amazing. So the Ayn Rand disciple had a family fortune built on government contracts, grew up in a town that benefited from government contracts, went to college on Social Security benefits, and has been on the Government payroll for most of his adult life . Who knew that Ayn Rand was all about being a creature of federal government: but then, she relied on Social Security benefits at the end of her life anyway.
What’s clear is that already the story is developing that Ryan is a gigantic fraud and hypocrite and Team Obama has hardly opened fire yet. Its going to be a bumpy ride for RR, Inc.
@Rob in CT:
As Kevin Drum puts it, “Cut taxes on the rich, cut spending on the poor. Everything else is just window dressing.”
That’s the plan.
@stonetools:
Ryan is a kind of fiscal and budgetary tele-evangelist.
Much like Michele Bachmann, Paul Ryan is almost entirely a creature of the federal government.