Horwitt writes: "Barack Obama has been without an overarching, persuasive narrative since Inauguration Day but now, thanks to Mitt Romney's pick of Paul Ryan as his running mate, he's finally got one."
Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, during a campaign rally in Virginia, 08/11/12. (photo: Getty Images)
Paul Ryan: Obama's Ticket to a Second Term
12 August 12
arack Obama has been without an overarching, persuasive narrative since Inauguration Day but now, thanks to Mitt Romney's pick of Paul Ryan as his running mate, he's finally got one: the defender of the middle class and the great Democratic progressive tradition from FDR to LBJ.
The right-wing, big-money forces, more emboldened than ever in this post-Citizens United era and personified by the Koch Brothers, are determined to seize the moment and dismantle middle-class entitlements rooted in the New Deal and the 1960s. That dismantling is a centerpiece of Paul Ryan's red-meat budget proposal and why Paul's their boy, as Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal editorial writers made abundantly clear a few days ago. It is not hard to imagine some friendly "suggestions" by Romney's richest, right-wing donors to the soon-to-be Republican presidential nominee that it would be a very good idea indeed if Mitt put Paul on the ticket.
So, Romney has thrown down the gauntlet, confounding Inside-the-Beltway wisdom that he was too cautious to pick the controversial Ryan. And now, the often too-cautious Barack Obama has an opening to re-brand himself as the bold champion of the Democratic Party's great progressive tradition.
In fact, Obama adopted that populist persona when he gave a speech in Manchester, New Hampshire early in his first campaign for president more than four years ago. Then he told his audience that "we cannot settle for a second Gilded Age in America." He saw a close parallel between the "robber barons, railroad tycoons and oil magnates" of the first Gilded Age, and today's powerful financial interests that dominate "a new economy where more wealth is in danger of falling into fewer hands; where the average CEO now earns more in one day than an average worker earns in an entire year." We haven't heard much of that kind of truth-telling populist rhetoric in the last four years, but that's about to change.
By picking Ryan as his running mate, Romney has given Obama a big opportunity to identify with such Democratic presidents such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson who stood up for ordinary Americans in the face of unrelenting, often vicious opposition from moneyed interests. That choice, being played out again in sharp relief in 2012, is as old as the Republic. Most of the time, when the lines are clearly drawn, the American people make the right choice. Running as a full-throated progressive is Barack Obama's ticket to a second term.
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1.He thinks very well of Israel's socialized medicine.
2.He would repeal Obamacare, a giveaway to health insurers.
3. The Democrats would return to opposition-part y status. They were a bit better in that capacity.
4. The Democrats might realize that many voters will not vote for the duopoly; that the lesser evil is still an evil, and we will not vote for it.
5. The US voter will not have re-elected an unscrupulous war-criminal, liar, and friend of elite frauds.
Rule? In case you haven 't noticed, the middle class is fast disappearing while people of means (including small-business owners and employers) are leaving the economy in a hurry. Give me any color or sex of a conservative leader and most of the country will be far better off, after a 20-30 year fix of the Liberal damage of the last six years. If it hadn't been for Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi
Funding the Wars and giving out free goodies to their voter base then we might have had a chance of recovery during the Obama years. However, all he had cared about is golfing, family vacations, and fund- raising at $30,000.00/plat e dinner with the rich elite of our country. He has not attended one meeting of his Jobs Committee that he created and resides over in the last 8 months. Meanwhile, Michelle is spending big bucks traveling and spending on our credit card account. It's time that Liberals realize the harsh realities of life and that utopian principles don't work. I pray that the silent majority wakes up in November and overcomes the growing collection of special interest groups making up the Democratic Party. If not, Liberals will soon create a group consisting so many free-loaders that don't pay taxes (and get accustomed to sponging off others) that the rest of us will never be able to outvote them. We'll become another Greece...
Simon Schama's "Citizens" documents the bankruptcy of Louis XVI's government from the numerous wars of France in the 18th century. His government like ours could not raise money through taxation, because the privileged would not allow it and the peasants were already desperate. So what did King Louis do? He borrowed, just as our government does. Finally, he could not pay the interest on the loans; he could not pay his civil servants; he could not pay his military. The Estates General were called, and he no longer ruled France. Three years later, he had his head cut off. I doubt that US citizens will be rewarded with the heads of our criminal and stupid leaders. Too bad! Too bad!
progressive! Of course he has done
some very good things in this first
term, but there are some very simple
and forward looking things which could
be done that would make a huge difference. Progressive means forward,
right?
1. Continuing the aggression in Iraq and Af-stan.
2. Violating the Bill of Rights and even Magna Carta.
3. Saving the big banks instead of breaking them up.
4. Protecting torturers from prosecution.
5. Aiding and abetting tyrannical regimes.
6. Droning innocents across international borders.
7. Giving a bounty to private Obamacare insurers.
8. Prosecuting benign whistle-blowers.
9. Persecuting Julian Assange.
10. Torturing, prosecuting Pfc Bradley Manning.
11. Subsidizing new nuclear-power plants.
12. Thwarting justice with pleas of state-secrecy.
....
The list of Obama's "good things" is not endless, but it is a much longer one than I have presented.
Because this is planet Earth and Jesus isn't running for President. Things can AND WILL get a whole lot worse with Mittens in the White House.
Voting for a war-criminal is an endorsement of war-crimes. Voting for a constitutional scofflaw is an endorsement of our government's illegitimacy. Voting for a liar, a renderer to torture lands, a savior of corporate frauds is an endorsement of lying, torture, and criminality. If MR commits the same crimes, we cannot help that, but we don't have to endorse them.
As for Jesus, I would not vote for him either. In none of the Gospels is he reported to have said a word against slavery, which was rampant in the day of this mythological religious leader.
Once again, on planet Earth, some of us are dealing with our REAL world options. Judging from the fact that you can't name the Green Party candidate although you "plan to vote for her", I'd say your agenda to divert votes away from Obama at all costs is pretty obvious and transparent.
I don't want Mittens to be the next President of the United States. YOU DO.
THAT'S the difference.
ALSO HAS A NAME.
YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS, DO YOU?!?
You clearly have an agenda and refering to someone you "plan to vote for" but can't remember the name of makes it pretty obvious.
Go ahead look it up and come back here so you can "prove me wrong".
1. Mitt Romney and other Republicans are promoting policies similar to or often worse than those that had such disastrous results during the Bush administration, including converting a three-year major surplus, which was on track to completely eliminate the total federal debt, into a major deficit, creating very few net jobs (none in the private sector), and leaving the country on the brink of a depression, with an average of 750,000 jobs being lost during its last three months.
2. Republicans have obstructed efforts to get our country out of the tremendous ditch they left us in by voting no on and sometimes filibustering many Democratic proposals, some of which they previously supported and sometimes even co-sponsored. Hence, it is not surprising that a recent poll showed that 49% of Americans believe that Republican Congress members are purposely sabotaging the U.S. economy in order to defeat Obama and other Democrats, while only 40% disagree.
3.. Republicans support continued tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and highly profitable corporations, while basic social services that middle class and poor people depend on are being cut and teachers, police officers, fire fighters, and others are losing their jobs.
to be continued
4. Republican legislators have voted against providing funds to save jobs of teachers, police officers, and fire fighters, providing unemployment benefits to long-time unemployed people, and providing medical benefits to 9/11 responders.
5. Republicans are generally in denial about the tremendous dangers from climate change, in spite of a very strong consensus in peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals and statements by scientific academies all over the world that climate change is a major threat, largely caused by human activities, and the many wake-up calls we have been receiving in terms of severe storms, tornados, floods, heat waves, droughts, and wildfires,. Anyone who thinks that climate change is a hoax promoted by liberals should visit the website of the “Republicans for Environmental Protection.” (www.rep.org) . This conservative group was only able to endorse four percent of Republicans in the 2010 U.S. midterm elections because so many Republicans are in denial about climate change and other environmental threats.
6. The Republican Party has moved far to the right under the influence of the Tea Party. There are very few moderate Republicans in Congress today.
Certainly, Romney has played a desperate hand here: his choice will surely fire up the right wing base, but I don’t think it will help Romney with independents or moderates. And he needs those to have any hope of winning.
BRAVO, tswhiskers! Well said! VERY Well said, indeed!
War propaganda in the last day got Hillarious - wonder what support there will be to liberate Syria (over 50%?). Our "liberated" Iraq - long border with Syria - supports Syria government.
AIPAC decides US November president - whoever does Israeli dirty work WINS.
Obama has had an overarching narrative, not persuasive to me, however. The narrative was use of the terrorism anxiety to support continuing illegal occupations and other violations of what had been international law, and continued impunity for corporate criminals and support for their financial institutions from the US Treasury. In the present, we can see the nature of Obama's "support" for the middle-class in its steady decline since his inauguration. They have lost their homes, jobs and purchasing power. Their children cannot get jobs and are back, living with Mom and Dad. The tradition of FDR and LBJ are on the block with Obama's appointment of Simpson and Bowles to the deficit commision. After the election, the ax will fall on what's left of the New Deal and Great Society.
You are weaving fantasy Mr Howitt!
Also the right likes to forget that their last Republicon President to a budget surplus and an expected 5 trillion dollar surplus in his first year and gave it to the likes of Koch and Romney and Ryan which resulted in the Economic problem which they caused starting in January 2001 with roots back to Reagan (the 2nd worse leader we had) and his deregulation policies towards banks and Wall Street.
Yet here we have Ryan whose goal is to have the middle class become the new poor class and pay the bill for the 1% continued greed and extravagance.
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