Just got the news that rmoney is picking Randian fetishist Paul Ryan as his running mate. I’m no Chris Matthews, but I’ll be god damned if I didn’t get a tingle going up both legs when I heard the news.
We may win back the house. I’m serious- the Ryan pick is that bad. The Obama team that just spent the last couple months braining Romnney over Bain and his tax dodging (to the point that Romney is now crying that Bain and his business record should be off limits) are going to have a field day with Ryan’s vacuous voucher plan.
Stephanie Cutter and David Axelrod are popping champagne corks right now.
butler
Romney just introduced Ryan as “The Next President of the United States”. Not so confident in your delegates Mitt?
cathyx
A tingle up both legs? So you think Ryan is handsome too?
bemused
Oh man, the dramatic entrance music for Ryan. At least Mitt isn’t going to sing.
Whatsleft
“Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan”, said Mr. Romney in introducing his VP pick!!
cathyx
A tingle up both legs? So you think Ryan is handsome too?
bemused
Oh man, the dramatic entrance music for Ryan. At least Mitt isn’t going to sing.
Narcissus
I’m watching it on TV and either it is the goofiest thing I’ve ever seen or I’ve had a stroke
cathyx
A tingle up both legs? So you think Ryan is handsome too?
bemused
Oh man, the dramatic entrance music for Ryan. At least Mitt isn’t going to sing.
Violet
@Whatsleft: HIILARIOUS! And then he came back to the stage, put his arm around Ryan’s shoulder and said, “Once in awhile I’ve been known to make a mistake.”
Freudian slips are bowing down to greatness.
butler
Ryan has introduced his family. Look for them in “Paul Ryan’s Wisconsin”, coming to TLC in Summer 2013.
MeDrewNotYou
I know I haven’t been a good enough person for FSM to have blessed all of us so. I’m both awestruck at Romney and the Republican’s stupidity, and giddy over this all at the same time.
Elizabelle
They didn’t sleep well last night. Laughing too hard.
And when Romney’s first statement, once his annointed has taken his side, is to apologize for a mistake?
Because he just introduced his running mate as “The next President of the United States.”
Another bottle, please.
Jennifer
I’m really looking forward to the ads:
“Romney and Ryan are what the Republican Party is all about: Romney’s the rich guy that buys your company, runs it into the ground, and loots the pension plan on the way out the door, and Ryan’s the operative who makes sure Romney doesn’t have to pay any taxes for unemployment benefits, social security, or medicare after he’s stolen your livelihood for personal gain.”
They’ve done us a real favor here.
Elizabelle
They didn’t sleep well last night. Laughing too hard.
And when Romney’s first statement, once his annointed has taken his side, is to apologize for a mistake?
Because he just introduced his running mate as “The next President of the United States.”
Another bottle, please.
MeDrewNotYou
I know I haven’t been a good enough person for FSM to have blessed all of us so. I’m both awestruck at Romney and the Republican’s stupidity, and giddy over this all at the same time.
bemused
Oddly, Ryan didn’t mention getting SS when his dad died when Ryan was young.
kdaug
Dude, if you can even keep which office you’re running for straight, how will you do at 3:AM?
Can’t wait for the debates.
cathyx
I see I’m not the only one who had trouble posting a comment.
yam
Let’s push the sobriquet that Charles Pierce coined for Ryan:
Zombie-eyed Granny Starver. We could make him as famous as Santorum…
butler
Ryan just introduced his family. Look for them on “Paul Ryan’s Wisconsin”, airing Summer 2013 on TLC.
Narcissus
Halperin just blew a hole in his trousers
Glidwrith
I’m dating myself, but remember Julia Roberts in ‘Sound of Music’ singing how horrible she was as a child, but must have done something good to deserve the Captain? Damn, but I must have done something good, LMAOROLF!
Kane
How Plouffe, Axelrod, Cutter and the rest of TeamObama managed to convince TeamRomney and some in the Beltway media that Ryan is Romney’s best hope is beyond brilliant. They have been punk’d, and they still don’t know it.
Mike in NC
Most people haven’t a clue what a scumbag weasel little Paul ‘Rand’ Ryan is. They’re in for a real treat!
J
I just hope enough of the awfulness that is Romney/Ryan gets through. But if the American electorate were good at detecting awfulness, Bush would not have served a second term and Republicans would not have returned to power in the house in ’10.
CarolDuhart2
Fail pick, Fail pick. No foreign policy experience, no executive experience, no gravitas. Obama and Biden are laughing away this one.
And I doubt that the charismaless Romney has chosen someone
Even on the campaign skills front, Ryan can’t help. He’s never campaigned statewide, and since far too many Congressional seats aren’t competitive, he’s never had to do real campaigning at all. It’s like taking a high school player and immediately putting him in the lineup at the Super Bowl. A Presidential General Election is no time for rookie mistakes and having to learn how to relate to an entire country you’ve never even had to travel though.
There’s a reason why few Congresspeople have ever even run for President, and the last one who won was back in 1866 when campaigning was more at the convention than anything else.
Joseph Nobles
The dramatic entrance music both times was from Harrison Ford’s “Air Force One.”
Also, the hashtag #RuhRoh2012 is working my funny bone.
Scott
Sometimes I almost feel sorry for the Romney campaign and their comical ineptitude.
But the feeling passes quickly.
dmsilev
I see that Barack Obama’s superpower of inducing self-destruction in his opponents is still functional.
Elizabelle
The response to every sentence in Ryan’s speech:
“Because of you fucks.”
The despair among Americans, the recovery that can’t gain traction.
The lie about Obama passed everything on his agenda when his party controlled Congress.
Davis X. Machina
The only demonstrable effect a VP pick has is a 1.5-3% uptick in the VP’s home state. Is Wisconsin that close? Under that model, McDonnell of VA makes more sense.
bemused
@Whatsleft:
Are we sure this isn’t a Will Ferrell movie?
Klkee
Curious that neither Mitt nor Eddie Munster, in describing his Up From Slavery Bootstrap Climb mentioned the key role played by the payment to Mrs. Ryan of Social Security survivor benefits. I guesss we don’t want to mention the SS issue just yet….
geg6
@cathyx:
Isn’t it weird that it only seems to be men who find Ryan (and Romney, for that matter) is devastatingly handsome? I find him totally creepy. Donkey Hotey captures him perfectly over at Pierce’s place.
Violet
@Glidwrith: Julia Roberts? Do you mean Julie Andrews?
Ryan is a snoozer. I’m already bored. The crowd sounds bored too.
I think Romney’s slip introducing Ryan as the next President of the US is exactly how the campaign understands Ryan. They know Romney is second fiddle.
Also, too. Ryan’s wife looks like she’d much rather be anywhere else. What’s her story. Will she have to campaign? His kids look bored too, but they’re young so they get a pass.
Absalon
Reluctantly, my first post on this blog will be relatively Debbie Downer – the media vermin will tongue-bathe Ryan so thoroughly his descendants will be sexually gratified our generations down the line. They will sell sell sell his entire vision and will chastise the left for not taking him seriously in these dire times of imminent fiscal Harmageddon.
HOWEVER. That’s the short-term. Romney will shore up the base something fierce and the low-info undecideds will be seduced. After the convention, however, things will become much less comfortable for Ryan. It will be repeated again and again: Ryan/Romney means maximum pain for most Americans with little to no effect on deficit reduction.
The Biden – Ryan debate will be interesting. Ryan is an upstart that believes saying the same lie over and over makes it true and principled. Biden will have to strike him down without being seeming like an old uncle being annoyed by fresh and daring ideas.
The Obama ads will be unbelievably brutal.
butler
Career politician, no accomplishments of his own, voted for all sorts of horrible things, no military service, no executive experience, no foreign policy experience…
Oh wait, that’s what Republicans would say about Ryan were he a Dem.
mikefromArlington
What a diverse crowd!
Scott
@Glidwrith: There was a remake with Julia Roberts?
//Julie Andrews, maybe?
raven
@Violet: Wait, wait. God is in the house.
dmsilev
@Violet:
I see a video intercutting between this and the Fredo scene from part II of The Godfather.
General Stuck
I wouldn’t mind popping a champagne cork with Stephanie Cutter.
Klkee
@Glidwrith: Julie Andrews, not Julia Roberts, but yes: “Somewhere in my youth/or childhood/ I must have done something good!”
Oops-beaten to it.
piratedan
well alright honey, let’s go get Nathan Junior!
I agree JC, for anyone paying attention and actually listening to what these debates should bring, here is a nice clear choice for the electorate….
elect the guys looking to resurrect the country by upgrading infrastructure, ending the gravy train for those sucking at the government teat (the defense industry and the oil companies), looking to the future instead of living in the past and playing fairly with the middle class by reining in wall street by electing a Congress that will fund the national consumer protection agency versus the guys
who will privatize social security, make health care coupon driven, continue to allow the wealthiest to do as they wish and return us to politics of exclusion.
lets just hope that the media wonks behind the Dems are up to making intelligent powerful 30 and 60 second encapsulations countering the big lie machine.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Did I read that right Mittens the draft dodger announced he had picked Ryan on the USS Wisconsin?
No frapping way, this has to be a joke.
Baud
@kdaug:
“Pursuant to my authority as Commander-in-Chief, I’ve authorized a military strike on the nuclear facilities of Canada. I mean Iran. . . . I may have made a terrible mistake.”
butler
@Davis X. Machina: God help us if Wisconsin is that close. If it is, then states like Ohio and VA and Florida are already red, and this whole thing is over. Thankfully I don’t think that’s the case.
ChrisNYC
Boy, Ryan is full on in love with himself. I’ve never watched him before.
dmsilev
@Violet:
Check out the banner graphic that Erick ibn Erick is using. He’s apparently trying to convince somebody that Ryan is the head of the ticket and Romney the running mate.
Edit: Also, too, Erick of the House of Erick likes the pick and thinks it will change the direction of the race. This, let us remember, is the same man who greeted the selection of Sarah Palin with a post entitled “Epic Win”.
Valdivia
Apparently Ryan has been getting foreign policy briefings from the neocon team. Can’t wait.
I think the Village will try to insulate Ryan for as long as possible but then they will have to go with what people actually see instead of their Village views.
debbie
I just heard Ryan say that America was a place where if you play by the rules, you can get ahead. I hope someone points out that we are where we are today because his pals thought the rules didn’t apply to them. Or is that hoping for too much?
piratedan
@Jennifer: damn Jennifer, that was beautifully succinct! should be stolen and reposted on FB everywhere.
Violet
What I got from that is that Ryan is the star and Romney knows he’s owned by the teabaggers. It’s all body language and flubs, like the “Ryan is the next President of the United states” one, but that’s how that announcement seemed to me.
J.W. Hamner
Why would Ryan want this? Is Congress too hard or something? No matter what happens in November I feel like his prospects were better without being VP.
JCT
@Davis X. Machina: McDonnell fucked himself (and his chances) with his transvaginal ultrasound wand.
Uh, and Ryan sounded like the apocalypse was nigh – better watch that malaise stuff pretty boy.
Joey Maloney
@Glidwrith:
You’re dating yourself insofar as you must have had some really primo Owlsley acid to see Julia Roberts’ head on Julie Andrews’ body.
Narcissus
@Violet: Ryan/Romney 2012
bemused
@ChrisNYC:
He is supremely confident but so was Ted Bundy.
Villago Delenda Est
Absolutely.
FSM loves her some Barack Obama. Of this there is no question.
Christmas in August, indeed.
Lurking Canadian
Is there a way to get the “Ryan loves Rand and Rand hated Jesus” meme into circulation? That might be enough to drive Romney into single digits.
butler
@J.W. Hamner: This is his big career break, the thing that gives him a national name. These are the kind of things that, if played right, can be parlayed into a Senate seat, or a Governors Mansion, or even a Ryan 2016 or 2022 run.
Plus there’s the grifting. He’ll write some awful book next year and get $10 million just as an advance.
Kane
A presidential candidate with a long history of tax dodging, and a vp candidate with a long history of arguing that the safety net must be dismantled because of the lack of revenue. Good luck with that.
kchiker
I’m not sure Dems fully appreciate that this will mean Obama will need more money than he would have with another pick.
Valdivia
@debbie:
hey that’s an Obama line. He has been saying that since 2008. Stolen!
shortstop
@Davis X. Machina: This particular panic move is predicated on getting a certain national response. They’re wrong about that, too, of course.
I can’t believe Portman had to get his “It’s not you” call from TAGG ROMNEY. Hilarious.
NotMax
So, with Mitt pouting about Obama not helping Mitt’s campaign, and now with Wisconsin’s Ryan on board, can we dub this duo Whine & Cheese?
Brian R.
CNN is now replaying the Gingrich clip about how the Ryan Plan was “right-wing social engineering.” Awesome.
dmsilev
@shortstop: “It’s Tagg. You’re not it.”
General Stuck
Well, it is Mitt Romney for president we are talking about. So I wouldn’t say the Ryan pick is like forever. Next week is another day, and Ryan could be un picked when the Home Guard Granny Division musters with their walkers and various and assorted sharp objects.
jp7505a
@Jennifer:If Obama and the Dems can’t hang that statement around R&R and the GOP to hold the White House and they Senate, then they deserve to lose.And with a bit of luck retake the House.
It’s not as if we donot have examples of what the GOP plans to do just look at Rick Scott, Scott walker and the somewhat lesser know Corbett in Penna.
Joseph Nobles
@shortstop: “Hey, it’s Tagg. You’re not it.”
shortstop
@dmsilev: Love it.
Elizabelle
@butler:
Ryan’s big career break might give Democrats the House. And the Senate. And the White House.
Win all around!
bemused
How humiliating it must be for Mitt to be a rotten second banana to Ryan.
Villago Delenda Est
@shortstop:
Portman has been demoted to “help” status. Although he’s probably not clever enough to figure that out.
Alex S.
@kchiker:
Well, Romney will get the Koch money now, but the Obama ads basically write themselves. And they will hurt a lot. Ohio might be gone for Romney, Florida will be gone, too. Romney/Ryan might have enough money to air ads nationwide, but they have to break through somewhere and at some point, advertising reaches the saturation point. We’ve seen it with Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman.
bob h
Christie would have been a far superior choice. It will be interesting to see how much he endorses Ryan, given that a former NJ budget director says the Ryan budget would devastate the state.
jayboat
@ChrisNYC:
Hard to hide that level of smug and awesome in the same sack of skin.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brian R.:
Brian, don’t you know that Newt denounced that sentence of his as a lie? As in he was brainwashed into saying it or something?
He had to walk that back within a news cycle and then actually said that anyone who said he said that was a liar.
Quincy
So, Reid reveals his source about an hour from now?
SiubhanDuinne
Wow. I can’t believe it. That “next President” gaffe? Never happened! NPR just played a clip of Romney introducing “the next Vice-President of the United States” as if it were an actual thing that happened. Never said one word about an edit. I am just stunned at the blatancy of our tongue-bathing MSM.
gelfling545
Eleven dimensional chess be damned. This is outright sorcery. How does Obama get his opponents to do these things?
Gregory
Announced on the Friday news dump? That sounds strange. I seems that Romney still hasn’t closed the deal with conservatives, which bodes well, because crazy conservative policies — ending Medicare, for example — aren’t popular with anyone but the crazy base.
Fluke bucket
I anxiously await the bounce in the polls he is going to get after this star burst announcement.
@piratedan: agreed. I would love to make those words my status for today.
Villago Delenda Est
@SiubhanDuinne:
NPR: Nice Polite Republicans.
NotMax
Two capital Rs and 4 syllables. Somehow doubt it is just random parallelism.
Ronald Reagan
Romney/Ryan
gelfling545
@geg6: Yes, quite weird. To (female) me they look like pictures of used car salesmen photoshopped to look like male models.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
No Protestants on this ticket. It’s a Mormon and a Catholic. That’s probably knocking a point or two off the ratings in the Bible Belt.
Valdivia
Love how the media are now saying the Obama campaign is finally being substantive in their comments and it is all thanks to Ryan. What?
The Obama people have been talking about policy all along–the tax study of Romney’s plan, that’s not policy? The only reason they couldn’t do more is that Romney refused to talk about it concretely.
These idiots.
Betty Cracker
@NotMax:
Dickhead / Cheesehead 2012
(Like Vulture / Voucher, also shamelessly purloined from Wonkette commenter CoolHandNuke.)
GregB
I’ve started posting that ‘I am shocked that Romney chose a man who’s never worked a day in his life outside of being a career politician’ on my rightwing friends FaceBook pages.
Hope for a forced de-friending.
eponymous coward
@butler:
More like Freudian slip. Ryan will be 46 in 2016. Americans tend to switch parties in their Presidents every eight years. And Ryan is not a complete joke like Governor Reality Show.
This pick is good news for 2012, but I think Romney knows that he’s behind, and figured “fuck it, I might as well queue things up for the next one by setting it up so we have an appropriate tool for the Koches to promote. If I pull one out and actually win this one, we’re set up for 2020; if not, we’re set for 2016”.
Yes, I know, let’s worry about 2012 first. But I’ll be on record for this: Paul Ryan:Presidential election of 2016::Scott Walker:Wisconsin 2010. You’d better get ready for this one. Because there will be a whole lot of Koch money coming to whitewash this guy.
Villago Delenda Est
@RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist:
In an extremely roundabout way, Mormons are at least derived from Protestants.
Not that most fundigelicals would realize this, as Joseph Smith basically invented a whole new creed when he “discovered” the golden tablets.
You’re right though, they don’t count as Protestants in the eyes of the fundigelicals. They are a “cult”, even more disgusting than the one based in Rome.
Tripod
@Davis X. Machina:
Just a note on what @CarolDuhart2: mentioned.
The historic VP sample is made up of known statewide candidates.
Wisconsinites outside his district don’t know Ryan from a block of cheese.
wiscomom
@RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist:
And if Ryan’s such a good Catholic, how come he only has three kids? Did he get a special deal from his bishop?
rob!
Mitt Romney just said that Paul Ryan is “An intellectual leader of the Republican Party.” Sadly, that is true.
HE Pennypacker, Wealthy Industrialist
Is it really too early to start drinking? Great news!
Allen
This is great news, as good as when McCain picked Palin. Shows how out of touch the Republicans leadership is.
virginia
“Randian fetishist …” Love love love that phrase.
ellie
How did we get so lucky? I should buy a lotto ticket or something.
Karen
The only thing I would say is don’t underestimate Ryan. Or should I say, don’t overestimate the American public. Remember they voted for Ronald Reagan and for George W. Bush. And while the media may not like Romney, they love Paul Ryan. Hopefully now Obama super PAC will make more money.
JWL
At this point in time, Obama does possesses more good will among the American electorate than did Jimmy Carter in August 1980.
And Ryan is not the top of the ticket.
But I witnessed the voters elect Reagan. A man who declared trees to be a source of air pollution early in the campaign; a man who was disabused of the notion that nuclear weapons could be triggered to self-destruct in mid-flight only after assuming the presidency.
Tank admiral Dukasis was a plate of mash potatoes.
2000, but more importantly, 2004. Need I say more?
Anyone who feels confident about the outcome this November should steer clear of bookies.
jayjaybear
@Jennifer: I’m stealing this for Facebook…
Patricia Kayden
“Stephanie Cutter and David Axelrod are popping champagne corks right now.”
Don’t drink, but a virgin pina colada sounds good right now. Apart from sucking up to the Righties, what good is a Ryan pick in getting the votes of indepedent voters?
Ken_L
I’m confused … aren’t the conservatives supposed to hate Washington insiders? And then they nominate two guys who’ve been insider political operators since they started to shave? I know about cognitive dissonance but this takes it to a new level.