The Purple Poll, done by a Republican-Democratic partnership in a dozen battleground states, found some improvement for Mitt Romney after naming Paul Ryan to the ticket, but not much:
“In the immediate aftermath of Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate, the GOP ticket has drawn even with the Democratic ticket. Today, Romney and Ryan lead the Obama-Biden ticket by a point (47% to 46%), an improvement from July when President Obama led Romney by 2 points, 47% to 45%. Taken as a whole, these data indicate a small bump in the immediate aftermath of the Ryan announcement. Nonetheless, it is also the first sign of positive momentum for the Romney campaign that we’ve seen in the Purple Poll in the last few months.” — Full survey here (pdf file)
The Ryan Factor
Gallup shows Ryan “bump” lowest in recent history . . .
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69 Responses to Ryan More Blip Than Bump
Now on The Trail
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/presented-with-letters-ryan-admits-requesting-stimulus-cash/
Truth can be inconvenient for a habitual equivocator.
meanwhile back on mars, let’s rename it “new arizona” and solve some of our population problems…
could have been blimp had it been the nj guy
patd.. To funny!
Hey a blip now a bump later then a Hill to climb by November !!
He’s a blip that will be stuck to Mitten, well, like another mitten with one of those clip thingies.
As MoJo suggested yesterday, Romney looks better with Ryan than without him, in that, you don’t even notice Romney right away when Ryan is in the pic.
Their town hall meeting will be at St. Ann’s to ~get church back into politics where it belongs~ you know. (Also, a nice name choice; trying to give the Mrs. a make-over since she seems a little too lady-of-the-manor.)
patd -- Or “New Nevada.” All it would take is water, air conditioning & casinos. Once there, nobody would ever know the difference.
They are fumigating Big D; aerial spraying for mosquitos has commenced because 200+ people have become ill and 10 have died from West Nile Virus.
So, let’s not ask everyone to dump standing water; let’s not ask people to take normal, anti-skeeter precautions, no, let’s just poison everything. The bees, the fish, the butterflies, all of the little crawlies & critters that create our local eco-system.
They say it doesn’t harm humans, but I’d like to see anyone who thinks this is a good idea spending lots & lots of time outside during and after they spray.
The CDC pushed this spraying; they are a joke, headed by people with less foresight than the things they seek to kill.
Ah, Paul Ryan requested stimulus money to increase job growth and reduce energy consumption in WI.
blip-blip-blip (I think somebody’s heart monitor just kicked in.)
Jobs programs will work, especially if money goes to local businesses and homemade/grown goods. Avoid WalMart, or at least look for American-made goods (if you can find any there); go to the farmers’ market…the job is just the first step to fixing a local economy; people have responsibilties as to how they spend their money. For some, those choices may be more difficult if they have children to care for, etc., but everyone can do something…even Paul Ryan, it seems.
did mika major in face-making and eye-rolling?
Just curious.
http://www.gorevidalnow.com/2011/06/gore-vidal-on-ayn-rand-in-1961-she-has-a-great-attraction-for-simple-people/
blue, sorta what i had in mind. also dress some martians up like sheriff arp and gov brew for color.
With Ryan bunking in his office for all those terms, was he returning whatever housing allowances a grateful electorate provides for a DC dwelling?
flatus, did he include on his 1040 the value of free housing?
sturge, thanks for that vidal item. his observations still hold with today’s new crowd.
Clearly, Cong Ryan is frugal to a fault.
odd item for dailykos
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/15/1120605/-Willard-Romney-Mormon-Politics
i agree with the lewis comment on that kos piece above:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/fareed-zakaria-keeping-jobs-at-cnn-and-time-following-suspension-for-apparent-plagiarism/2012/08/16/fc16af5e-e7f0-11e1-9739-eef99c5fb285_story.html?hpid=z4
Negative themes…
At the moment, Ryan is more “likeable” than Romney. But the Obama team is going to make him “the guy who wants to kill Medicare.”
And Romney? He’ll be known as “the tax cheat.”
Romney’s negative theme is already out there.
Obama is a “(insert N-word here).”
It works with the GOP base.
Speaking of the N-word, here’s my favorite scene from Blazing Saddles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upvZdVK913I
John Fugelsang -- Caffeinated #1 -- Romney vs. Ali
Parker Pen…
Mini-Mitt was happy to see them leave…probably got the house for cheap
Even though the school would kick LP out if he was caught failing to cite his sources in his papers, I’m happy to hear the Fareed will still have his show and column. I enjoy his show, and until my Time subscription runs out later this year, will continue to enjoy his columns.
Anything really stupid happening on the campaign trail?
Anything really stupid happening on the campaign trail?
pogo…. yeah… they’re campaigning…
From Daily Kos…Ayan Rand asked for, and received, Medicare & Social Security assistance when she developed cancer.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/16/1121029/-If-Ayn-Needed-Medicare-How-Can-We-Do-Without
Latest Politifact ratings on Romney and Obama campaigns. Romney not having a good day.
So it wasn’t possible for Ayn Rand to live her own philosophy? Imagine that. She didn’t purchase health insurance? Or did she exceed the cap on hers? Or did she find that Medicare was a better deal for her than private health insurance? Ya just have to wonder.
Imagine, Romney’s campaign and surrogates not being straight with the facts. Who could have ever guessed that?
what a rand supporter told me was that rand was a stickler for collecting ANY dollars she felt were owed to her.
she hated reagan…thought abortion should be legal….thought there should be no laws against homosexuality….she hated religion. she was certainly a mixed bag o’ tricks…..
kgc…you know I was thinking that very same thing about romney mere as she was defending the tax returns thing…..very un-attractive.
Christopher Hayes @chrislhayes
“The recipient of a public $ is morally justified only so long as he regards it as restitution and opposes all forms of welfare statism. “
Christopher Hayes @chrislhayes
Shorter Ayn Rand: Hate the game not the player.
Gee you mean people actually pay into Social Security and Medicare as a form of insurance and expect to collect on the “full faith and credit of the United States”? What could they possibly be thinking?
Well, weekend has come and pre-school activities have started. (I wonder if the torrential downpour rained out the picanic?)
But one last nugget.
http://tinyurl.com/9g5k9rj
And an interesting one at that.
Keep waiting for some member of the media to ask Mr. Romney: “Sir when was the last time you signed a contract without reading it simply because someone said, ‘trust me’”
Ronald Reagan: Trust but verify.
The Romneys said the more they release -- it just gives people more information to attack us… well that’s right Ann because there probably are things in there that most people won’t find appealing
It’s not about the number of years it about the content of the returns
This is the funny part. All this “voter fraud” gop bullyshit is going to backfire on them…..it’s going to drive up democratic turn-out at the polls.
The three decade long economy policy debate of Reaganomics vs. Rubinomics has demonstrated that neither is valid. The Reaganomics model, as practiced by Reagan and by President George W. Bush, emphasized was on reduced tax rates for the wealthiest and corporations that would in turn spur economic growth and jobs and thus the wealth would trickle down to the people and thus the tax cuts would increase government revenue. The Rubinomics model, named after Robert E. Rubin, President Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, focuses instead on cutting the budget deficit that will reduce long-term interest rates as the best way to foster growth and the creation of new jobs, since that frees up resources for private investment. Both sets of economic formulas espouse free trade, financial deregulation and subscribe to the laissez-faire economic theory that tells them anything that increases corporate profits is good for the economy and if government quits regulating and stays out of business way, business will grow jobs.
History shows that you can have economic growth with high deficits, as Reagan did, and economic growth with higher taxes, as Clinton did. Taxes and deficits are important but history has demonstrated they are not as important as the ideologues would like us to believe.
The Economic Recovery was stymied by Obama’s disaster of economic teams that are a virtual constellation of former Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin’s, Goldman Sacks based and Wall Street loving players, including Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, Peter Orszag, Gary Gensler, Michael Froman, Gene Sperling, etc. President Obama’s appointment of regulators that don’t believe in government regulation of the “Free Market” and find excuses not regulating and permitting self regulation. This lack of regulation has cost all of us billions of dollars.
Here is just one example that has cost us hundreds of billions of dollars. President Obama has allowed his appointments for chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Gary Gensler, the former Goldman Sachs partner at 30, anti-regulation, and derivatives cheerleader, and the conservative majority on the CFTC the latitude to refuse to implement the mandate from the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill to curb speculators’ abuses in the $5 trillion physical commodity futures contracts including oil and gas, economically equivalent swaps, and foreign board of trade price-linked contracts for over a year.
A study conducted by the nonpartisan consumer advocacy group Consumer Federation of America found that speculation caused the average American household to spend an additional $600 on gasoline expenditures in 2011. Moreover, the report concluded that excessive speculation (which the organization estimated added about $30 per barrel to the cost of oil in 2011) drained the U.S. economy of more than $200 billion in consumer spending in 2011. Runaway oil speculation is costing the airline and trucking industries $39 billion a year in added expenses that are passed to the consumer as higher ticket prices or delivered product prices.
Today, speculators dominate the trading of oil futures. According to Congressional testimony by the commodities specialist Michael W. Masters in 2009, the oil futures markets routinely trade more than one billion barrels of oil per day. Given that the entire world produces only around 85 million actual “wet” barrels a day, this means that more than 90 percent of trading involves speculators’ exchanging “paper” barrels with one another.
Because of speculation, today’s oil prices of close to $100 a barrel and has become disconnected from the costs of extraction, which averages about $11 a barrel worldwide. Pure speculators account for as much as 40 percent of that high price, according to testimony that Rex Tillerson, the chief executive of ExxonMobil, gave to Congress. That estimate is bolstered by a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Federal legislation should bar pure oil speculators entirely from commodity exchanges in the United States. And the United States should use its influence, where possible, to get European and Asian markets to follow its lead, removing oil speculators from the world’s commodity markets.
Eliminating pure speculation on oil futures is a question of fairness. The choice is between a world of hedge-fund traders who make enormous amounts of money at the expense of people who need to drive their cars and heat their homes, and a world where the fundamentals of life — food, housing, health care, education and energy — remain affordable for all.
Under the Affordable Care Act I understood there are other related taxes which everyone will be subjected to. Here is a partial list of those taxes. The last paragraph is especially eye opening. However,if you make less than $9,500, have a hardship, belong to a special religious group, or work for a company that only offers insurance plans that costs more than 8% of what you make, then any of the taxes associated with the Affordable Care Act won’t affect you. Reminds me of that old biker saying from back in the 60′s, “Cash, grass or ass. Nobody rides for free” Well that is what they use to say back then. Interesting.
http://read.bi/Pkixmk
“President Obama’s appointment of regulators that don’t believe in government regulation of the “Free Market” and find excuses not regulating and permitting self regulation. This lack of regulation has cost all of us billions of dollars.” http://craigcrawford.com/2012/08/17/ryan-more-blip-than-bump/#comment-295201
Well said, Purple.
Per your appearance Friday with Elliot Spitzer:
Does the GOP think those aged 55+ are selfish enough to screw their own kids and grandkids on Medicare? Yes. Exhibit A: climate change.
“she hated reagan…thought abortion should be legal….thought there should be no laws against homosexuality….she hated religion. she was certainly a mixed bag o’ tricks…..” http://craigcrawford.com/2012/08/17/ryan-more-blip-than-bump/#comment-295190
Sturge, I love your ‘musicians’ mind, meaning (I think) your (right side?) brain thinking: your creative, artistic way of thinking, speaking and communicating. I’ve always had so much respect for people who are fortunate and confident enough to be really artistic and creative — to stray out of the box so many of us get stuck in.
“My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”
—Ayn Rand
all she did was rob and flowerify what she fancied was the Nietzsche Way.
I think….maybe.
I’m ambi-brainious…..meaning I’m equally goofy on both sides….
MO
“Cash, grass or ass” must always be at the base of any system seeking to insure the greatest possible numbers. Unless you are willing to let people just die, or continue with our current system of allowing medical needs to bankrupt and destroy family and city budgets, then everybody needs to be in the pool. Costs are only reduced by either volume or taking care of illness/injury before it reaches the critical cost stage.
The problem with the Affordable Care Act is that it still leaves us at the mercy of corporate insurance gouging rather than a truly universal system such as most developed nations have had since the 1950s
Oh that’s cute. Rachel Maddow opens her show with the American Express commercial featuring Stephanie Miller’s daddy, Bill … More Current, MSNBC cross pollination?
“all she did was rob and flowerify what she fancied was the Nietzsche Way”
…. yeah, but she was so wordy!
I was so young when I struggled through all her books (by then they were in paperback, but at the time I remember enjoying them all immensely — didn’t have to agree with everything she said, in order to consider it . I read all her books word for word, but remember little from them now (although I’m sure we absorb a little something from every thing we’ve ever experienced or thought about).
Don’t we all contradict ourselves sooner or later? Don’t we all catch ourselves doing or saying something hypocritical occasionally. If not, I think we’ve either stopped moving forward, are being dishonest with ourselves — or worse of all, have closed our minds. Mistakes make us wiser (I hope they do, because I’ve made sooo many of them myself).
I have to admit though: I believe much more in subjective thinking than objective. We really do, as you say you do, have to create a balance between the two sides of our noggin.
I wouldn’t mind letting go of a little of the emotion though. But when I feel good, I ‘really’ feel good.
“I think….maybe.”
…see! That’s what I like.
You leave a little buffer zone there.
Nemo
Some of my greatest entertainment is arguing issues with myself. I don’t have multiple personalities, I have mental Siamese quadruplets.
Ha, barkway, good one. Welcome aboard, and thanks for watchin
Poor John King even he had to admit that the results from a Peter Hart focus group have meaning — and that is the people think Mittens is hiding something because he won’t release more of his returns..
But he couldn’t resist adding — the focus group was also hard on Obama get grip John..I’m sure they won’t take away your election toys --just cuz the election story isn’t intereting
“I have mental Siamese quadruplets.”
Ha! Love it Jamie!
… exhausting, isn’t it:
I’m thrilled to still be in the works of the mix since it’s been so long since I last posted. I’m trying to figure out how to survive until the election, and even afterward, and hoping that some of the comments here will cheer me up. I hear so many people say mitty can’t win, and I just can’t be comfortable with that. Everyone talks about how dull he is, but he’s not dull -- he’s sharp as a tack and is completely
commited to his own way. He gets by with non-answers and non-details, but believe me, he has his answers and his details. He is the epitome of “my way or the highway” and I don’t want to have to live thru that tone for four years.
I never said this before but I can see myself as being so miserable with the religion and erosion of rights that I could leave the country. At least I have a niece with her family in France now.
C’est moi again. I thought I should change my subject in a different post rather thata go overboard. I just want to update you on the roughest summer I can remember.
My niece and her family have finally landed in France, but without furniture for a few days. The are also without their dog and cat. The cat is very shy and likes to be outdoors when the house is quiet, ao he stayed away for weeks, finally showing up. They were afraid to let him out again so he had to stay in the house for 2 weeks or so while they somewhat moved out. That gave me the job of going up and spending several hours with him everynight to keep him calm -
he and I have a very deep relationship. The dog stayed with my sister, and some of us spent days and hours getting the rest of the stuff out of the house for the renters. The dog will fly over as cargo later, and the cat maybe on the lap of his daddy who had to come back to clean all up.
That is if the cat has the right papers. It seems Europe wants all pets to have an ID chip, but not the one we have.
So trips and calls to the consulate later, it appeared ok. Today Steph had to go to a vet in SF to get different papers signed and filled by a Frech-approved (??) vet, and it turned out that the papers our vet filled out here were wrong. Mind you, he is leaving for France tomorrow morning.
It is not known for sure if the cat will be accepted at the gate, so someone will drive/ride the bus to SFO tomorrow in order to bring kitty back if necessary. That would present another p[roblem, but I won’t go into that.
Irritated yet? My nephew’s wife has created more problems,
built upon the legal eparation. She bought a $500,000 house
(not much in Berkekley) and so he has come to live with his parents.She also can get testy bringing his son up to see him. He still isn’t right from the strokeand can be very hard to deal with, altho I have no prblem. He gets a ride into town and walks aroung a lot and meets new people, but his parents -- well, I love them but they are the hardest people I’ve ever had to deal with EVEN tho they are wonderful
He has no job, no friends in this town, no method of transportation except for my picking him up in the evenings after he hits some spots. It is breaking my heart, and the worst part is I knew this would happen before he ever dated her. Now his sister and her family are gone,
Okaym now I’ve told you why it has been hell this summer, and that jackoff has been riding thru the scene all the time.
If anyone has read all of this, you’re pretty darn nice cuz even I won’t read it.
I think that the American people are in real trouble and that Fascism has taken a firm hold of Our Government.
If $Rmoney wins PA and its 20 Electoral Votes they may win the White House. With all the Fascist Nazi Republicans Voter Suppression we could see the end of America.
Thanks too all the Independents and Democrats who stayed home in 2010 and gave them majority’s in several States as well as the US House and Minority Filibuster Senate.
We finally got the Government we deserve.
Have a great evening and good night.
bethyboo! What a delight to see you back on the Trail! I’ve missed your voice terribly!
I’m sorry you’ve had such a rotten summer, and hope it somehow gets much, much better!
As for your thoughts on Romney…AMEN!!!
Hate to sound schoolmarmish Trail Mixers but seems to me we haven’t been too welcoming to newcomers lately. Can’t expect them to stick around if their posts are ignored. I haven’t done as well as I should in this department either, but let’s be more neighborly:
barkway
ohoklahoma
MSetlur
russellhuegel
Sure, I know, some might be drive-by one-hit wonders, but you never know when someone might turn into a valued regular, with a little encouragement.
Hey Craig, nice sentiment but not to worry. I thoroughly enjoy reading the comments here. Need no validation. Excellent job on Spitzer tonight by the way. He really seems to respect you. His NY smarts and your down home spun work so well together. Real chemistry. Hope that’s a good thing, HA
CC…for my vote it’s catch as catch can…..grab a strap and hold on.
Sturg, or how about some Catch Wrestling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_wrestling
http://gnarlmaster.tripod.com/gnarlmaster/Headchancery_files/b5q205556651.gif
I was just looking at Facebook. Patsi would have been 67 today.
I know this thread is over, but a thumbs-up welcome to all those good folks Craig noted earlier:
barkway,
ohoklahoma,
MSetlur, and
russellhuegel
And to Bethy, thank goodness you’re back. Each time up above that I gave you a check mark, the meter chalked-up two hits. Isn’t that special!!
RETREAD
Bethy,
I’m so glad to see you back here..I have missed you terribly..Hope things in your world start to get better..
WELCOME to all newcomers,
barkway,
ohoklahoma,
MSetlur, and
russellhuegel
Craig,
Spot on, thanks…
Chloe,
Your posts bring me joy and get me to thinking about life and its ups and downs..Kinda makes me do a little self examining, very good indeed..
Voting Hurdles, Ohio and Florida Edition
by Taylor Marsh
Bethyboo -- I am sorry to hear about your niece’s family’s pet problems. As a cat owner who had to fly from Honolulu to Los Angeles, I know what it is like to put up with a lot of unnecessary garbage when trying to fly your pet. Unfortunately, people just want to be assholes and make our lives miserable because they are bored.
Though, I hope that it did work out so that there were no problems today with reuniting your niece’s family with their pets.