gdanaher wrote:I'll stand corrected on that point, but will his nomination bring the state to the republicans? The last Rasmussen had it to Obama by 3%. Is one republican district worth more than 3% statewide? I guess we will find out in the next survey.
The last Rasmussen (yesterday's) has them even. It also had Obama with a 43% approval and 57% disapproval rating. Obama is vulnerable.
The other thing to consider about Ryan is this, and it is equally true about some of the other rising young turks of the republican party:
conservative republicans are a dime a dozen. Conservative republicans with
national appeal are few and far between. We're talking....what....maybe a half dozen names? Thus, Ryan has great appeal
beyond the borders of Wisconsin. I mean, here we are in
Texas, discussing Paul Ryan's candidacy—NOT whether or not he is conservative enough, capable enough, qualified enough, dynamic enough, young enough, etc., etc. The same could be said for Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and 3 or 4 others whose conservative credentials are unimpeachable
and who are well regarded nationally by republican voters, but overall, it is a small number of people who meet those criteria. Furthermore, Sarah Palin got the base fired up because she spoke all the red-meat phrases, had personal conservative values, and....well, she was hot looking with an M4 in her hands. Paul Ryan is bright as hades, conservative, tough, and intellectually gifted all the way down to the bone. But to add to that, Ryan has no skeletons in his closet—something which Sarah Palin was painted with by the media almost immediately, whether they were true or not. Ryan is squeeky clean. They will find nothing on him. And he is by far one of the brightest bulbs in the conservative armatorium. Whether or not you like him, you can't paint him with the stupid brush. It just won't stick.
So with Romney's somewhat squishy reputation propped up by Ryan's impeccable credentials, we have a strong campaign going forward.
Another thing to think about......I can't stand Obama. I just want him to shut up and go away. But every day he is in office, I pray for his good health; because if something happens to him, we get President Biden. That should scare the tinkle out of all of us. That would be like handing a chimp a loaded gun and hoping nothing goes wrong. But with a VP Ryan, God forbid something should happen to Romney, but if it does, the administration falls into capable hands.
FDR had Truman, who was a refreshing gift to us when FDR passed.
Truman had Alben Barkley (who?)
JFK had LBJ. Love him or hate him, LBJ was not a traitor. He was wrong on a lot of things—most especially his "Great Society"—but he wasn't a dummy. He was a smart man, and he would not have sold the US down the river. And he managed the transition into the presidency fairly well, considering the very difficult circumstances and the cold war stakes.
Nixon had Ford, who wasn't congenitally stupid.
Ford had Nelson Rockefeller.
Jimmy Carter had Walter Mondale. Again, not somebody with whom I would agree about almost anything, but at least I know he arrived at his beliefs by careful consideration. He was wrong, but I think he was a fundamentally honest man. Comparing him to Biden, old Uncle Joe comes out looking retarded.
Ronald Reagan had George HW Bush. He did OK for himself.
GHW Bush had Dan Quayle, and....well.....OK, forget about Quayle.
Clinton had Al Gore, who gave us the Internet and the hypocrisy of carbon tax credits.
Of coure GW Bush had Darth Vader....a good choice for scaring people into line and projecting The Force.
Which brings us to Obama/Biden. Really? What was he thinking? When we look at the last 70 years or so, presidents have often picked VPs who were ciphers, nobodies, people whom you just PRAYED that nothing would happen to the president. And Joe Biden brought such selections to the level of a high art. Absolutely the loosest canon the office has ever seen.
So compared to all of those, Paul Ryan is a peach. He would be brilliant as a
presidential candidate. I don't think he hurts Romney's campaign one single bit. He will never pop off the way Biden does. He will never stick his foot into his mouth up to the calf, like Biden does every other week day plus Sundays. He will never make his boss look bad or call Romney's judgement into question. And his arguments on economic policy are irrefutable, not matter how many nasty commercials liberals make about him. Irrefutable.
Another thing, he's been in the House of Representatives since 1999, long enough to know how it is played. Rubio would have had the same albatross that Obama had—only 2 years in the Senate.
He's a brilliant choice.
By the way, today's Rasmussen Report:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_ ... cking_poll
Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
Saturday, August 11, 2012
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows Mitt Romney attracting support from 46% of voters nationwide, while President Obama earns the vote from 44%. Five percent (5%) prefer some other candidate, and four percent (4%) are undecided. See tracking history.
And by the way, Rasmussen is also coming up with good numbers for Ryan.
EDITED TO CORRECT A COUPLE OF SPELLING ERRORS....
