Honeyshack Politics
2012 Candidate, we’ll see who remains standing:
I will not post on 3rd party or write in’s as this country is not prepared for that yet.
REMEMBER, EVERYONE IS A CON. Party affiliation doesn't matter anymore in this two party oligarchy. The Democrat party we used to know in the 60’s even the 70’s IS NOT what they are today, same for the Republicans. IT IS SCARY TO BE SURE. IT SHOULD NOT be a vote for party any longer, it SHOULD BE about who will best server “We the people” and our Country in their elected position, but that is not today. Who will protect our Constitution and Bill of Rights, who will keep our rights from being taken away even further, WHO will protect our Borders?
These so-called party kingmakers are in for a heads-up confrontation with the Constitutional Conservatives. Remember the magic formula, 60+20+20. The Conservative movement is comprised of 60% Republicans, 20% Independents… and surprise, surprise, 20% Democrat. It’s a huge, very powerful coalition. You spend 7million to get elected to Presidency or other elected positions for a 200,000 a year job. WHO DO YOU OWE A PAYBACK TO?
WHO WILL speak out against items such as the minnow being "saved" in California to the detriment of the farmers there. A “Minnow” mind you that is not natural to that area but PUT THERE!
Same goes for the Lizard in Texas, we can keep you from drilling by regulation, we’ll do it through the EPA or extreme environmentalist groups, marking irrelevant species extinct even though we know nothing about them.
Resource links, announced and Likely some information has not been discovered yet, but will update as found
GOP NOMINEE:
Mitt Romney
Former Governor of Massachusetts
"I haven't made a decision yet as to what we're going to do ... but I can tell you that I'm very drawn to the fact that this country needs someone who has private sector experience, because this economy is troubled." Romney on "GMA," Feb. 1, 2011.
Mitt Romney is probably the favorite at the moment. He is a battle-hardened veteran who went through the 2008 campaign relatively unscarred and probably learned a lot from it as well. He is already campaigning full time. He probably has most of the Republican establishment (and certainly big business) behind him. To top things off, he doesn't have to waste any time raising the $50 million to get him through the initial primaries. He can just write his campaign a personal check. Although he sounds like a shoo-in, he's got a couple of problems. First, the Republicans are going to want to make the 2012 election about repealing ObamaCare. Romney can say RomneyCare, which he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts, is totally different than ObamaCare, but all his primary opponents are going to say it is practically the same thing. Count on Obama, who realizes that Romney is the candidate to be feared most, to perpetually thank him for leading the way and saying that he patterned his program on Romney's. Second, if the tea party continues to be a force in the Republican primaries, Romney has a big problem. He is much more like Bob Bennett, Trey Grayson, Sue Lowden, and Lisa Murkowski than the tea partiers who challenged and beat them. Morphing from the moderate governor of a very blue state into a right-wing firebrand who wants to abolish the IRS and the Dept. of Education will be quite a trick. Third, Romney is a Mormon and a lot of Southern evangelicals (which is the base of the Republican Party) don't believe Mormons are even Christians. If Romney starts talking about his beliefs, it will just draw more attention to the subject, something he really doesn't need. Nevertheless, everything about Romney says "Grown-up."
Age: 63
Birthplace: Detroit
Family: Ann Romney (wife); Children: Tagg, Matt, Josh, Ben, and Craig
Religion: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon)
Current job: Keynote speeches, GOP fundraising
Previous experience: Presidential candidate, 2008
Most Recent Book Written: "No Apology: The Case for American Greatness" (2010)
PAC: Free and Strong America PAC, Inc.
Total 2010 Receipts (from Dec. report): $5,568,466.75
Cash on Hand (from Dec. report): $796,207.59
Total 2010 fundraising for the federal and five state PACs: $6,300,723.52
WATCH Romney Discusses Run for President in 2012
Pros: He has money, he has executive and business experience, and he has (pardon my nausea) the “presidential look” voters care so much about.
Strong name identification. Experienced campaign team with proven fundraising ability. Success as a businessman.
Cons: His weaknesses in the previous election may continue to trouble him in the next. He has progressive skeletons in the closet from his days as the governor of Massachusetts – such as signing state health care legislation into law, which some have compared to Obamacare. Voted for CAP and TRADE. His pro-life credentials are weak, or at best, recent. And finally, he’s Mormon, which may not play a large role in the election (since most voters will focus on the economy), but it probably did have an effect on some evangelical groups in the last election.
VP ELECT:
Paul Ryan
Tea Party sweep in the 2010 elections, and incoming Budget Chairman Paul Ryan on Capitol Hill was telling a room filled with about thirty policy wonks that he had no intention of just playing it safe.
Outlining his plans for the upcoming budget battle over FY12 and his intentions for it, Ryan pushed for conservative coalition groups to organize in favor of a budget plan which presents a sharp contrast to the Democrats' vision of the future. He wanted to take a strong ideological stand in 2011 with the anticipation that it will lead to a better and more clear-cut fight in the 2012 elections on budget solvency, the size of government, entitlement reform and all the rest, no matter who the nominee is—though he noted that if done right, this process would “probably result in a better nominee.”
Essentially, Ryan was anticipating and rejecting in advance the advice of the pollsters and the hand-wringing members of the caucus (his phrase) in preparing to take an active stand in favor of significant entitlement reform not just sitting on their hands in hopes that the job market and the poor economy created a better scene in Washington in 2012. Ryan spoke of recognizing that Republicans were in no way given a mandate in the 2010 election; instead, he viewed it as a rejection of Democrat overreach, not an endorsement of Republican ideas. So now he would supply the ideas, turning the budget battle into a confrontation not just of numbers but of the moral question about debt passed on to future generations and the necessity of balanced budgets. Over the next few months, he would say all these things in public forums, and his judgment about how people would react would nearly all prove correct.
Ryan’s message that morning was bracing and serious. It was also not politically safe. But now that he has been chosen as Mitt Romney’s running mate, that message is one which is going to receive a much more prominent hearing, one which stretches outside the bounds of Capitol Hill and tests how willing the American people are to hear what he has to say above the noise of the antagonistic Obama campaign.
“A Romney-Ryan ticket would refocus both campaigns on entitlements, fiscal policy, and issues of debt and deficit immediately, issues that Romney feels he can lead on, where Obama has not, and where Ryan is an expert in arguing in the public square. Ryan sends a message about the seriousness of the fiscal challenge we face, one that Portman and Pawlenty do not. What's more, the attack is coming anyway. This fall, the left will tie Romney to Ryan's ideas regardless of whether he's the choice. The White House is going to blanket Florida with "they're going to kill you" ads; so if you're going to get the granny over the cliff ads anyway, why not get a guy fully experienced in responding to them?”
The cases are all essentially the same: Ryan is a serious man in a serious time, and knowing that the attacks are going to come from the Obama campaign and with gusto, it’s wise to have your best defender on the team. Ryan has been a forceful and confrontational advocate ever since this moment, when he took on Barack Obama in the early days of 2010. Here’s the video, which is the first time most of those outside of Washington took notice of him. http://vlt.tc/eyr
The decision to pick Ryan is not a safe one, however. And it is a definite break with the path that Team Romney has adopted to this point. one which adopted the sit-on-your-hands restraint Ryan spoke of in 2011 with such disdain, essentially attempting to make the first Friday of every month Romney’s running mate.
It is a selection worth the risk but I also think commentators may be underestimating the value of the relationship Ryan had with Romney during the primary, one formed over the course of a year, which brought the two politicians closer together in ways that escaped the notice of most observers.
Keep in mind the timeline involved. Ryan decided not to run (he never had any real intention of running in my mind) in part because Rick Perry got in the race. He even supported Perry as Romney attacked him on Social Security. There was a strong push for Ryan to still get in as cracks appeared in Perry’s armor, but it was for naught. As an aside: one wonders how Romney would’ve treated Ryan as an opponent, as opposed to a legislative ally. Had Ryan run for president, his Medicare plan would've been the least of his problems in my view: everyone in America would know he voted for the auto bailout, TARP, and his pro-union votes within a week of Romney slash and burn ads. If you don’t think they would’ve done this, I think you’re fooling yourself. Ryan’s voting record has more in common with that of a pragmatic Midwestern moderate, not the hard-edged conservative he’s painted as by the left. The Tea Party would’ve turned on Ryan very quickly in my view, and his support from the intellectual elite would not have mattered much. This is a reminder that the real problem with the 2012 primary was not that the conservative base couldn't decide who they wanted, but that they wanted someone who didn't exist.
Ryan’s priority is Medicare reform. He is willing to set aside all other issues, his Medicaid plan isn’t the best, and he shed Social Security reform entirely in his latest budget in order to achieve that goal. Medicare reform is still the least safe topic for any election, and it’s also one of the most complex. This is the area of policy Ryan holds dearest, the only real thing he cares about, and he'll give up anything to get that reform, including walking back all sorts of steps which were in the prior plans. The problem with Ryan-Wyden and the subsequent budget, which received more opposition than prior Ryan proposals.
Having a policy debate in the course of an election is never wise, but it was likely unavoidable in this case. Romney may think so as well. Ryan has forcefully advocated for presenting an alternate vision to the American people: he told Ryan Lizza recently that presidential candidates shouldn’t “run on vague platitudes and generalities, I want a full-throated defense for an alternative agenda that fixes the country’s problems.” http://vlt.tc/ez9 Now Ryan will supply the agenda, but both Ryan and Romney will have to defend it.
PROS:
-The choice of Ryan ensures this will be an election about entitlement reform which puts the best possible defender of Republican plans on the main stage.
-Ryan is a pragmatic Midwesterner, perfectly consistent with the geography the Romney campaign has targeted as their priority for the fall.
-In terms of social policy, Ryan’s Catholic faith is honest and well-grounded, and he doesn’t shirk from defending it in the public square as he did at Georgetown. http://vlt.tc/eym
-Ryan is a serious and diligent worker who will be well-briefed in advance of the lone Vice Presidential debate, and is unlikely to have any difficulty carving up Joe Biden.
-While Ryan has not been thoroughly vetted by the election-focused press (which is made of much stupider people generally than the policy-focused press), he has been covered to a great extent with longread after longread about his ideology, and thus is unlikely to offer any significant surprises.
-If you believe, as I do, that Romney’s strategy throughout the summer has been a failure, then Ryan provides a serious kick in the pants.
CONS:
-Ryan is a member of Congress, the most unpopular political entity in the country. http://vlt.tc/ez4 Picking Ryan allows Obama to run against the House of Representatives in exactly the way he’s wanted to all along.
-Ryan has also voted for every unpopular measure (right and left) from the Bush era. This includes No Child Left Behind, the Iraq war, Medicare Part D, TARP, the auto bailouts, and numerous other measures which Team Obama will deploy with gusto—something a governor like Pawlenty would’ve avoided.
-I agree with James Antle that insiders overestimate Ryan’s appeal to the rank and file. http://vlt.tc/ez5 I also believe they may underestimate his toxic nature among political independents. If the dictum with Veeps is “do no harm”, Ryan is not that.
-There will be a race to define Ryan’s views again on a major stage, and Romney already arguably lost this contest in defining himself in the public eye. http://vlt.tc/exo Like Sarah Palin, Ryan may thus face the possibility of having to do this on his own.
-Ryan is Jack Kemp’s heir in numerous respects. But he lacks Kemp’s common touch and the inner city cred which made Kemp such a harder advocate for entitlement reform to attack and demonize.