Clarion Content

Does this guy bring enough of...

this to the table for Romney to win?

The Clarion Content agrees with the Washington Post that the 2012 Presidential Election winner will be the candidate that does a better job turning out the party base. It is ironic because President Obama's win in 2008 was carried by first time voters and folks who have not always voted in the past.

We agree with the Post that so much of the country already has their mind made up, be it, for or against Obama, that this means there are very few undecided voters for either campaign to win. The nation has been polarized since the middle of the Clinton presidency; and if anything it has been getting increasing polarized.

It is for precisely this reason that Mitt Romney's selection of Wisconsin Representative, Paul Ryan, as his Vice-Presidential nominee was so worrying.¹ Romney is a pantywaist who will say and do anything to win an election. He has been on both sides of the abortion debate, both sides of the gay marriage debate, both sides of the bank bailout, and enacted the law that Obama-care is based on, that he is now campaigning against.²

Ryan, on the other hand, is a red meat eater, who makes no bones about his intention to gut the government like a fish.³ While he isn't a Tea Partier, the budget he wrote reads like one. He is running the Barry Goldwater playbook that dictates the easiest way to decrease the size of the government is to starve it of funding.

Ryan may energize a conservative Republican base that has been, at best lukewarm, and at worst ready for insurrection, over the Romney nomination. Earlier in the campaign season, leading conservative voice,⁴ Bill Kristol, compared the Romney campaign to the trainwrecks led by Michael Dukakis in 1988, and John Kerry in 2004.

Can Ryan get the train back on the tracks?⁵


Notes
¹We did find it interesting that Ryan, perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, is also still running for his Wisconsin seat.

²We would never endorse such a soulless strawman. One reason we opposed King George the II from before he is first day in office, was he was far too vacuous to have any idea what policies he supported. The Clarion Content fears the strawman and the pawn far more than the true ideologue. The true ideologue can be opposed on policy and shown to be what he or she is. The shapeshifter, the moving target, or the puppet run by his handlers can be harder to fight. Note, all this is in reference to after the president is elected.

³Ironically, if he had the balls and the intellectual consistency to oppose the bloated military industrial complex the government is handing our tax dollars over to, the Clarion Content agrees with him in other places. For example, America must gradually raise the age requirements for Social Security. Medicare must be reformed. Government waste is massive and maddening (and greatest in the DOD). However, his opposition to Pell Grants and Food Stamps could be described as somewhere between short-sighted and cruel (especially, while supporting continued tax breaks for the very richest Americans).

⁴Kristol is far less influential with the average conservative voter than say Rush Limbaugh, but he is major power broker at 31337 level. He had the Dick's ear throughout the reign of King George the II.

⁵Our view has been unchanged for several months; while it might be close-ish in the popular vote, President Obama will win the electoral college comfortably. Of course, a European bank run, an act of terror or $4/gallon gasoline could change the equation. The coming shock to food prices won't kick in until Obama's second term.

Labels: 2012 presidential election, Economy, Politics