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The Vice Presidential Debate: Someone Was Missing

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Hold it, I’m confused. I watched all of the vice presidential debate last night, and someone did not show up. Vice President Joe Biden was there—how could one miss him, with all the grinning, grunting, interrupting, and sneering. But where was the Ayn Rand-worshiping, rape-redefining, fanatically exercising zealot who wants to throw grandmothers off of cliffs and whose budget plan is, according to the president, “thinly veiled Social Darwinism” that is “antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility”? That Paul Ryan was nowhere to be found.

What America saw instead was a young and likable and knowledgeable conservative worried about the current trajectory of fiscal, monetary, foreign, and social policy. Where Biden harrumphed, Ryan calmly litigated President Obama’s failed record. Twice in eight days, the caricatures against which President Barack Obama and Biden are purporting to run have been exposed as grotesque exaggerations. The liberal attempt to frighten America with the illusory specter of an extremist Republican ticket dissolved on first contact with, well, the actual ticket. The reality principle asserted itself once again. We have an open race.

Perceptions matter. Why did 67 million people watch the first debate? One reason may have been that Americans, open to an alternative to the incumbent, wanted to know who the Republican nominee actually was. They only had vague knowledge of Mitt Romney going into the Denver bout—and their impression was not favorable.

What they knew was largely limited to the messages of $217 million in negative advertising from Obama and his allies: Romney was rich, secretive, out of touch, paying little in taxes, hiding his tax returns, stashing money in the Cayman Islands, singing out of tune, shipping jobs overseas with little thought of the lives he affected, dismissing out of hand 47 percent of the country, in favor of raising middle-class taxes and health-care costs for seniors, and waging a “war on women” with Todd Akin to “turn back the clock” on women’s rights.

The stories told about Romney in the media were no more flattering. Casual consumers of the news would have learned that the former governor of Massachusetts once bullied a child at his prep school; had catered to the most extreme wing of his party in pursuit of the GOP nomination; had insulted the highly sensitive and excitable Brits on the eve of the London Olympics; was gaffe-prone; had jumped the gun in his response to the attacks in Benghazi and Cairo; was either micro-managing or had little control over his campaign; was changing strategy on the fly; and was such a hopeless loser that the election basically was over. Obama had it in the bag. How could he not? Romney was trash—wealthy, radical, belligerent refuse.

Read more from this story HERE.

Unbelievable: Obama Was Guest at VP Debate Moderator’s Wedding, Appointed Husband to Head FCC

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President Barack Obama was a guest at the 1991 wedding of ABC senior foreign correspondent and vice presidential debate moderator Martha Raddatz, The Daily Caller has learned. Obama and groom Julius Genachowski, whom Obama would later tap to head the Federal Communications Commission, were Harvard Law School classmates at the time and members of the Harvard Law Review.

After TheDC made preliminary inquiries Monday to confirm Obama’s attendance at the wedding, ABC leaked a pre-emptive statement to liberal-leaning news outlets including Politico and The Daily Beast Tuesday, revealing what may have been internal network pressure felt just days before Raddatz was scheduled to moderate the one and only vice-presidential debate Thursday night.

Both Politico and The Daily Beast jumped to ABC and Raddatz’s defense. The Huffington Post, another liberal news outlet, joined them shortly thereafter, while calling “unusual” ABC’s attempt to kill the story before it gained wide circulation.

Genachowski — called “Jay” at the time of his wedding, sources told TheDC — and Raddatz would go on to have a son together before their divorce in 1997. They have both since remarried to other people.

A source who attended the 1991 wedding told TheDC that Obama was also a guest there, and remembered that a man by the name of “Barry Obama” was among the guests dancing at the reception.

Read more from this story HERE.

Reagan and Ryan: Time for bold colors, no pale pastels

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At one of the first CPAC’s, Ronald Reagan exhorted the GOP to raise “a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people.” Paul Ryan, who came of age during the Reagan’s Presidency, shares that view along with the vision for an alternative and much brighter future for America, if we have the courage to believe and to act.

In 1975, when Reagan made this speech, he recognized the Democrats’ views no longer aligned with the majority of the American people. He understood that the New Deal and the Great Society had run their courses and had been shown to be fundamentally flawed. They relied a mistaken notion that government somehow had the ability to efficiently allocate resources for hundreds of millions of people and that individuals did not want to be rewarded for their hard work and risk taking.

In the speech Reagan identified the following agenda as vital to restoring America’s promise:

1. Reduce federal spending and get the nation back to a balanced budget.
2. Lower tax rates and simplify the tax code.
3. Unleash the free market and recognize it, and not the federal government, as the primary provider for the people’s needs.
4. Restore sound money.
5. Roll back destructive job crushing regulations by the federal government.
6. Return to limited government; reverse the nation’s drift towards socialism.

In the years immediately following Reagan’s 1975 speech, the economic conditions grew even worse. Under the leadership of President Jimmy Carter and a Democratic Congress, the nation was experiencing double-digit inflation, interest rates of over 20%, rising unemployment on its way to above 10%, dropping real median incomes, and a rising poverty rate.

Paul Ryan identified the similarities to our time in a speech he gave at the Reagan Library this past May. “[T]he parallels between 1980 and today are so striking. Now, as then, we face not just a failed President, but a failed ideology. We face a pessimistic mood in the nation’s capital – a belief that our best days are over and the only thing left to do is manage the nation’s decline. But we have the same opportunity today, to reject this defeatist attitude and embrace a positive reform agenda capable of kick-starting a new era of prosperity.”

After becoming President in 1980, Reagan implemented much of the agenda that he identified during his CPAC address. His revolution included fundamental tax reform, ultimately lowering the rates to a top rate of 28% for individuals, while broadening the base and eliminating tax loopholes and tax shelters (which allowed the wealthy or politically connected to avoid tax liability). Reagan also slowed the growth of federal domestic spending to its lowest level since World War II: a great achievement, given the Democrats controlled the House for the entire eight years of his Presidency and the Senate for two of them. He also cut unnecessary and burdensome regulations on businesses and privatized government services performed better and more efficiently by the private sector.

The result of implementing the Reagan agenda was the greatest economic expansion in American history with over 19 million new jobs created with a population that was 85 million less than today. Unemployment dropped to 5 percent. Meanwhile, because of the incredible economic growth, revenues to the Treasury doubled.

Ryan’s plan incorporates all the key areas of Reagan’s agenda. It takes government spending head on including entitlements, which account for over 50% of the budget. It simplifies the tax code, bringing the top individual and corporate rates to 25% while closing loopholes and broadening the base. It also eliminates job-crushing regulations like those created by Obamacare. It facilitates a return to sound money by taking away the Federal Reserve’s need to print money to cover our nation’s debt, which is how 60% of our current deficit spending is financed. Overall, it promotes economic growth, which will lead to higher revenues to the Treasury and more jobs.

The President has already started demagoguing Ryan’s Plan, while speaking in broad platitudes about responsible spending (of borrowed and printed money) and investments in our future (echoing his rhetoric of 2008), but offering no plan. In a speech at Council Bluffs, Iowa earlier this week he said, “Paul Ryan’s vision is one that I fundamentally disagree with…They have tried to sell us to trickle down theory before. Guess what, every time it has been tried, it has not worked. It did not work then, it will not work now. It won’t create jobs, it won’t lower our deficit, it is not a plan to move our economy forward. We do not need more tax cuts for our wealthiest Americans, we need tax relief for working families.”

Mr. President, your recounting of the facts is entirely false. Reagan’s economy created more jobs in the year 1984 alone–4.1 million–than you’ve created in your entire Presidency. It brought hundreds of billions more in tax revenues, and got the economy moving again.

Reagan in his CPAC address said, “Our task is to make [the people] see that what we represent is identical to their own hopes and dreams of what America can and should be.” Ryan, in his Reagan Library speech, agreed saying, “A bold reform agenda is our moral obligation. We have an obligation to provide the American people with a clear path that gets our country back on track.” Then as now, it’s no time for pale pastels.

The Myth That Paul Ryan’s Pro-Life Views Will Hurt Romney

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By Dan Riehl. The media and Democrat spin machine are looking for everything they can to attempt to tarnish Republican Vice Presidential nominee Rep Paul Ryan. One part of that campaign is the claim that Ryan’s strong pro-life views may hurt Romney’s chances in the Fall.

The Hill speculates how Ryan may hurt Romney on the issue. The article relies on a number of abortion-rights supporters, including the Obama campaign as sources.

In reality, it’s wishful thinking, myth creation and advocacy, not journalism. It is an accepted truth in Presidential politics that Vice Presidential candidates do not win, or lose national campaigns. While 2008′s Palin-bashing is one example of Democrats trying to spin and hurt the GOP ticket, one should also consider the case of Dan Quayle.

Despite his having had an accomplished and capable career in the House prior to running for Vice President, the media destroyed his image during the campaign. It did nothing to impact the outcome. If Americans seriously voted for Vice President, one can only imagine how badly Barack Obama would have lost in 2008 with Biden along for the ride to assure old hand political insiders.

In reality, it is quite possible that Ryan will help Romney with women voters. They aren’t all eighteen years old, after all.  Read more from this story HERE.

This is what Fox News says about Ryan attracting an older female demographic to Romney:

[T]he Republican vice presidential candidate is far more popular among seniors than he’s given credit for.

Same goes for women. And independents.

Surveys conducted shortly before Mitt Romney’s VP roll-out show Ryan actually polls fairly well among all three of these groups. And while Democrats claim to be ecstatic at Romney’s choice — they say he’s an easy target, and they’ve already gone to town portraying him as “extreme” — the bookish lawmaker from Janesville, Wis., could end up bringing more votes to the ticket than he turns away.

A recent Rasmussen poll showed that 31 percent of likely senior voters gave Ryan a “very favorable” rating, compared with 21 percent of all legal-age voters giving him that rating. Just 16 percent of seniors gave him a “very unfavorable” rating.

So while Democrats are chipping away at Romney in Florida as the GOP candidate visits the Sunshine State on Monday, drawing attention to Ryan’s controversial Medicare overhaul plan, polling suggests seniors might be at least amenable to the VP pick.

 

 

Video: Paul Ryan in Ohio-‘As Joe Biden Might Say, It’s Great to Be Here in Nevada’

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Rep. Paul Ryan received a rousing welcome at this Ohio campaign stop and then poked some fun at Vice President Biden’s expense.

The same day, Vice President Biden attempts to slam Rep. Ryan but then commits yet another gaffe:

Romney’s “nice guy campaign” will end in defeat

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Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as his Vice-Presidential nominee will surely serve to fortify his campaign, solidify his base and increase his chances of winning the Presidential Election in November. However, he is destined to repeat history and find himself defeated if he insists on continuing to run a “nice guy” campaign similar to John McCain’s 2008 debacle.

Like his Big Labor buddies, Obama will continue to run a “Death by a Thousand Cuts” campaign, designed to vilify, psychologically intimidate and financially ruin Romney and his supporters. Obama, like the Big Labor “Gasping Dinosaurs,” has no record to run on or viable product/program to sell.Rather he is forced to resort to demonization and destruction of the opponent through defamation, distortion, intimidation, misinformation, propaganda and exploitation of the naïve and easily influenced, much the same as his Big Labor allies utilize during their “Corporate Campaigns” to force unionize targeted employees. Obama and his Big Labor buddies have no other choice as they lack the character, honesty, integrity and skill set to survive, let alone win, in a free market economy and open society.

If the 2012 Presidential Election was a basketball game, the President would have fouled out long ago, since the game has referees. Unfortunately, in the political arena there are no referees, only the rules of sportsmanship and gentlemanly competition. The President, having been trained by Big Labor during his days as a “Community Organizer,” has learned well that when you can’t win using the rules in place, you must change those rules. Much like Big Labor, who looks to set aside over seventy years of labor law by forcing through Card Check to eliminate the secret ballot election because they have failed to convince the American workers that they offer anything of value, the President understands that he must fundamentally change the complexion of the campaign and utilize similar tactics to “change the rules” in order to win. These tactics are learned from President Obama’s associations with the SEIU (see Obama and the SEIU Sittin in a Tree) and other Big Labor buddies, as well as from past associations with Saul Alinsky disciples Bill Ayers, Rev. Wright and others.

The question “Is Obama Just or Unjust” is immaterial as, much like the integrity of Big Labor, it has already been answered time and again. What is important is that the Romney campaign realizes the President is not a gentleman and that his agenda, his associations, tactics, inexperience, record and lack of character must be exposed, albeit professionally. The Romney campaign must also accentuate that it is the President’s beliefs, his disrespect for American values, and socialistic agenda that are the problem – not racial inequality, class warfare, gender warfare or age warfare, which will most assuredly be prominent tactics pushed by the Obama attack machine.The ace in the hole for Romney, much as it was for EMS against the SEIU as chronicled in The Devil at Our Doorstep, is to go on the offensive and place the Obama campaign on the defensive. Democrats fear the potential approach of unleashing Paul Ryan, as witnessed by the fact they wasted no time in attacking him.

Romney and his campaign must understand that this is an election of perception, not substance. Yes, Romney needs to succinctly lay out his agenda, but at the same time he must counter Obama’s attacks at every turn, showing the untruth’s behind each disingenuous attack. Obama, like his Big Labor buddies, cannot attack or debate on substance but only on ideology. Romney must professionally confront every piece of propaganda and misinformation until the Obama campaign no longer has any talking points and is relegated to crawling back under its rock. He must expose Obama’s associations and beliefs, which demonstrate that “He is what he despises!” They must accentuate the fact that America Needs an Effective Leader, Not a Politician (which is Obama’s only strength), that Obama chooses to Rule by Fiat instead of following the U.S. Constitution, that he places Political Aspirations & Payback Ahead of American Jobs, and that“America on the Precipice” is a reality because Obama’s socialistic agenda and big spending have placed the United States almost 16 Trillion dollars in debt!

Romney needs to understand American Exceptionalism is at stake, and that the remainder of the 2012 Obama campaign will mirror Big Labor’s Scorched Earth Campaign in Ohio in 2011! Even outsiders understand that Obama, the Puppet or Puppeteer, is leading this great nation toward disaster, as witnessed by this statement from a Canadian friend:

…Keep watching to see if the GOP is going to question how BHO was able to attend schooling the U.S.A. using a loan that is only available to foreign students??? He must have had a foreign passport to qualify. If so it was very likely issued by the UK because of that country’s association with Kenya that it once ruled (and thus BHO was born there.) And, when he visited Pakistan what passport did he use? Any good spin doctor could make good use of these questions and I assume that the GOP has it share of them. So far it has only been Mitt who has been on the defensive against the Chicago gutter-style of politics. It’s time to take a page from the Dems book and go on the offensive. Yes it is time to go on the offensive.

Yes, it is time for the Romney campaign to go on the offensive and learn the Lessons from the Wisconsin Recall and Governor Scott Walker. Governor Walker understood the task at hand and the fact that, much like Ralphie did to the bully in the movie “The Christmas Story,”when you punch the bully in the nose you get their attention and put them on the defensive. Obama has nothing to sell or run on except misinformation and intimidation.

As the old saying goes “the best defense is a great offense.” Go get ‘em Mitt!

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Dave Bego is President and CEO of Executive Management Services, an industry leader in the field of environmental workplace maintenance, the author founded a company priding itself on providing clients a single-source solution for commercial cleaning, facility services management, maintenance supplies and security. Operating at the highest standards in the industry as supported by its recent CIMS (GB) Certification with Honors, its Green Seal 42 Certification, the EMS Group offers competitive pay rates and benefits, attracting the best and brightest to their ever-expanding team. As of April 2012, EMS employed nearly 5,000 workers in thirty-eight states, providing Bego with the type of management experience and perseverance required to protect his employees, customers, and company from Andy Stern and the SEIU. David Bego’s account of Big Labor’s use of intimidation and corruption in an attempt to usurp American freedoms is chronicled in his riveting new book, The Devil at Our Doorstep. Truly the voice and face of the opposition to the Employees Free Choice Act a.k.a. Card Check, the author has enhanced his credentials through various media appearances and meetings with Congressional leadership on both sides of the aisle. This story is seen throughout today’s headlines, as Bego champions the need for National Right-to-Work legislation, explores President Obama’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Board’s drive to achieve card check or forced unionism through regulation. It exposes the political collusion between Big Labor, President Obama and the liberal left, and suggests programs to restore America’s future.

Videos: Biden’s recent comments lead Giuliani to ask if he’s too dumb to be president

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Biden is on a roll.  Today, he apparently forgot that he was in Virginia rather than North Carolina:

Then, he asserts that Republicans will put people “back in chains”:

That leads Giuliani to say that Biden might be too dumb to be president:

Of course, Biden can’t compare to Ryan. The GOP candidate for VP doesn’t even need a teleprompter:

RNC picks Chris Christie to give keynote in Tampa

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Photo credit: IowaPolitics.com

Chris Christie, the sometimes abrasive but always entertaining governor of New Jersey, is set to be announced Tuesday as the keynote speaker for the Republicans’ national convention later this month.

Christie, who considered a 2012 presidential bid of his own before endorsing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, is already at work on his speech to the convention in Tampa, Fla.

His record of cutting his state’s budget, curtailing public sector unions and dealing with a Democratic legislature with disarming and combative confidence all were expected to be on display as he looked to fire up his party’s base.

The scheduling decision was first reported online by USA Today early Tuesday and confirmed by Republican officials directly involved in convention planning. The Republican officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the formal announcement was not planned until later Tuesday.

“I’ll try to tell some very direct and hard truths to people in the country about the trouble that we’re in and the fact that fixing those problems is not going to be easy for any of them,” Christie told USA Today in an interview announcing his speech. He said he will describe his experiences in New Jersey as evidence that “the American people are ready to confront those problems head-on and endure some sacrifice.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Another view: Ryan’s pick plays directly into Obama’s hand

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Photo credit: Majordomo2012

Mitt Romney’s pick of a Democratic punching bag, Paul Ryan, as his vice president, enables Obama and the Democrats to shift the debate from jobs and the economy to pushing grandma off a cliff. The latter actually took the form of an anti-Republican ad on Medicare from a “progressive” group supporting Obama. It has now been resurrected for dramatic effect.

Bulletin News, a good summary of how the major media are framing the campaign, reports, “The consensus media view on both TV and print is that Ryan’s selection is likely to spark a prolonged debate on his budget plan, diverting the public’s attention away from the economy and thus boosting the President’s reelection hopes.”

In order to counter this liberal media bias, Romney and Ryan went on one of the top liberal shows, the CBS News “60 Minutes” program, to defend their proposed reform of Medicare. It was nearly the equivalent of Sarah Palin going on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric to discuss her reading habits. As Palin herself has written, that was done at the suggestion of a John McCain adviser, Nicole Wallace, who used to work for Couric and CBS News. It was a trap designed to carry on a narrative about what the liberal media wanted the public to believe about the Republican ticket. That narrative then was that Palin was not qualified to be vice-president.

The narrative has now been changed from jobs to entitlements, a shift that could cost the GOP many thousands of votes from seniors scared of losing their benefits. Liberals are gleeful. Many conservative commentators, including Rush Limbaugh, are falling in line behind the Republican ticket.

The problem in 2008 went beyond advisers, as the HBO film “Game change” made clear. Despite elements of Palin-bashing, it accurately depicted McCain as a candidate who did not want to take the gloves off when attacking Obama. McCain was shown being offended when Republicans suggested Obama and/or his associates were anti-American or had Muslim sympathies.

Read more from this story HERE.

 

Ryan sparks split on immigration

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Rep. Paul Ryan could be Mitt Romney’s olive branch to voters who want to see illegal immigrants gain legal status, with the Wisconsin Republican having repeatedly backed legalization efforts and cast himself in the mold of former President George W. Bush, who fought a battle with his own party on the issue.

But in the first few days since Mr. Ryan was announced, a split is developing among immigration reformers. Those in the business community say they are thrilled, while those who approach the issue from an immigrant-rights stance reject him as a salesman.

Mr. Ryan’s record is decidedly mixed.

As a staffer in Washington, he worked for Jack Kemp and Sen. Sam Brownback — both of whom were part of the Republicans’ pro-immigration wing, and who fought crackdown efforts from within their own party.

As a congressman, he voted for a 2002 legalization bill, praised the 2006 Senate immigration bill backed by Mr. Bush and co-sponsored a 2009 Democratic bill that would have legalized immigrant farmworkers. Each time, he was in a minority of Republicans.

But he also routinely backed the House Republicans‘ enforcement bills, including voting for the Secure Fence Act and for a 2005 bill that would have turned being an illegal immigrant from a civil violation to a criminal charge. Most recently, he voted against the Dream Act to legalize young adult illegal immigrants.