This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Politikos XVII. Who Are These People? The Campaign-Defined Candidates: Ryan/Romney

The unveiling of Paul Ryan for the impending nomination set off an explosion of biographical research by reporters, but also a barrage of bio-spinning by supporters.

Politikos XVII.

Who Are These People?  The Campaign-Defined Candidates: Ryan/Romney

August 16, 2012

Find out what's happening in Narberth-Bala Cynwydwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

 Harvey Glickman

        The unveiling of Paul Ryan for the impending nomination for Vice President on the Republican ticket set off an explosion of biographical research by reporters, but also a barrage of bio-spinning by supporters.  Secure in the knowledge that ordinary people (i.e., most voters) are affected by images and impressions far more than accurate knowledge, the spinners seek to shape our understanding of possible policies of the future by creative manipulation of previous policy positions or recent presentation of policy ideas.  Like job seeking, the task is to impress the person doing the hiring (i.e., the voter) by creative presentation of previous work experience.

Find out what's happening in Narberth-Bala Cynwydwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

         So we are told that Congressman Ryan is an imaginative reformer who wants to cut wasteful and wrong-headed government spending, especially on “entitlements” (i.e., earned benefits), like Medicare and Social Security, but really to save a system that Republicans keep claiming is going bankrupt.  But during 16 years in Congress Ryan supported President Bush's two tax cuts, the off-budget funding of two wars and a huge prescription drug benefit.   All of them contributed to giant budget deficits – a major worry of Ryanism – deficits that wiped out the surpluses of the era of Democratic President Clinton.

       At the same time, while excoriating President Obama for deficit spending and running up the national debt, Ryan also voted for Bush’s $800 billion TARP “bailout,” the auto “bailout,” President Bush’s $168 billion fiscal “stimulus” in 2008, as well as the infamous “bridge to nowhere.”   In 2009 Ryan voted for the competing Republican stimulus plan of $700 billion.  After Obama’s stimulus plan kicked in, Ryan twice applied for federal help for his Congressional district, to which he deemed he was entitled.  Ryan even has the gall to claim that his budget plan will “save” Medicare with a voucher system for seniors, because it does not make the reductions in delivery costs of Obama’s plans for Medicare.  Ryan, joined by Romney, blame the Obama Administration for the problems the Republicans helped create.

         Finally, Ryan’s personal philosophy claims to have been inspired by Ayn Rand and her glorification of individualism, but he has backed away from her atheism, not realizing it is part and parcel of her idea of ruthless self-orientation as the key to supposed social success -- a “community” of rugged individuals.

         Now what about Romney, the guy who has wandered from “Massachusetts moderate” to “severe Conservative?”  Well, during the early part of his campaign for nomination, he was called a vulture capitalist and someone who looted companies while at Bain capital – by erstwhile rivals Gingrich and Perry.  Romney got virtually universal medical care passed in Massachusetts while he was Governor by insisting on the individual mandate to buy insurance – an idea hatched years ago by the conservative Heritage Foundation.  Romney, of course, supported the Supreme Court challenge to the constitutionality of the Democrats’ Affordable Health Care Act, and totally flipped on the idea of the mandate.  Other reversals are what Timothy Egan in his NY Times blog  (“Opinionator” August 15, 2012) calls:  “Olympic in caliber: on gun control, abortion, climate change, taxes, gays.” Romney’s biography within this campaign plays down a privileged prep school in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, his Mormon mission work in Paris (which earned a draft deferment –- not mentioned in speeches to war veterans) and law and business school at Harvard.   Lately, Romney does not mention his Mormon religion, perhaps fearing he will offend evangelical Christians who are now so important in the Republican Party. Since refusing to reveal his income tax returns more than two years back, “he also avoids talking about his father, who opposed the Vietnam War and not only paid a much higher rate of income tax than did his son, but he made public those taxes — 12 years of returns.” (quoting Egan’s blog).

         The campaign today does not review Romney’s record as Governor.  During his one term, the state dropped to 46th place in job creation; 8th place in high school dropouts and teen pregnancies, due to cuts in education, job training and public health.  Instead, Romney wants to talk only about our present discontents; he’s not Obama.  I guess he will turn the economy around in the manner he “saved” the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City some years back; as if a two week jamboree in the snow can be compared to running a national economy.

         So who are these guys?  More and more it looks like a return to Bush-Cheyney.  Do we really want that?

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?