Category: POLITICS

The President of the United States managed to briefly interrupt his fundraiser in Las Vegas to inform the crowd of his regret regarding the death by murder of the representative of the United States in Libya, Ambassador Chris Stevens.  “Obviously our hearts are broken,” he exclaimed. Well as Mark Steyn would say, not so obvious.  The middle East is exploding in a masturbatory orgasm of Islamic radical spasm toward the great satan America, and the President, who once exclaimed that his mere personhood would reduce the invective felt by all Muslims towards America due to the unique blundering heavy-handedness of the clueless Bush, could not manage separate himself from the needs of the fundraiser to serve the needs of his nation, other than that brief, offhand remark.  Honestly…. stunning.

Chris Stevens was a man who had given his entire avocation to understanding the Islamic crescent of North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean seaboard.  He had earned a college degree from Berkeley, a masters from the National War College, and a Law degree from the University of California.  He had served in the Peace Corps in Morocco,  learned French and Arabic in addition to his native English, and ably served his country diplomatically in Jerusalem, Damascus, Cairo, and Riyadh.  He was one of the pivotal figures in helping to direct the United States communication with the Arab Spring rebels, fundamental in achieving the  overthrow of the  Libyan dictator Qaddafi, and in May 2012, was named American Ambassador to Libya and its fledgling government.  Chris Stevens was one of those special people who made their life work trying to find a way out of the chaos for those whose lives were perpetually crushed by the chaos.

Chris Stevens’ life of service was paid back by the Libyans he helped by brutal assassination and the obligatory infantile dragging of Stevens’ lifeless body through  the streets of Benghazi by the thugs who murdered him and their sycophants.  The Secretary of State Hillary Clinton managed to view this as “Libyans carried Chris’s body to the hospital.” Again….absolutely stunning.  Are these clueless people truly the ones implementing our national policies and protecting our sovereignty?

We live in times dominated by the theater of the absurd.  The President and Secretary of State of the most powerful nation on earth enunciate their vision for American diplomacy as “leading from behind”.   The Ambassador representing them in one of the most hostile and unstable places on earth is left on September the 11th, the anniversary of Islamic Radicalism’s greatest triumph, essentially unprotected at an”interim facility” in Benghazi on the terrorists’ most sacred date, the perfect sacred cow for sacrifice to the Islamic radicals greatest deity, the god of death. To bring the Absurdity to culmination, the UK Independent reports that the vulnerability of the American Mission was known for 48 hours and the American administration did nothing (except guest appearances on television shows and fundraising events).  Most absurdly, this American administration’s interpretation of this organized assassination squad was that it was after all the fault of America, because an obscure video on YouTube had obviously driven the initially peaceful protesters to distraction, and propagated their uncontrollable outrage to engage in ambassadorial murder… with apparently the RPGs, mortars, and other heavy weapons they just so happened to be carrying on their heretofore peaceful demonstration.  Absolutely, absurdly stunning.

We are currently being led into a snake-pit of financial collapse and paralytic foreign policy by a President whose most important constituency is himself.  He sees this country as his personal petri dish, where he can concoct absurdest  policies and visions of socialist utopias, and the lemmings will support him blindly.  Tremendous individuals  like Chris Stevens are being burned up in circular policies with no beginning and no end except the re-election of the prevaricator in chief.  Before we all pitch ourselves off the cliff following this absurd pied piper, let us find our sanity, and do the right thing on November 6th, 2012.

The 2012 Republican convention had a unique problem to solve when its presidential candidate rose to the podium to give the closing speech to the conventioneers and the nation.  What to do when your standard bearers, the articulate, impassioned, and committed spokesmen for the cause – have already spoken?  Like a great ship on the ocean, the Republican Party has dramatically shifted course toward a different horizon, and the captains of that ship from this time forth are Ryan and Rubio.  No two presentations before a national convention have ever put in place a more perfect bookend explanation as to what this political party believes and fights for, and the two will likely be the coming generational face of the party for the next 16 years.  Both will be indispensable, and it is likely both will be President someday.

But someday is not 2012, and the party’s candidate is Mitt Romney, and from all appearances he took on the problem of the two shining stars that preceded him and laid out a case that in executive positions, it is not flash, but competency that matters.  Challenging in prose and delivery the two previously mentioned  superstars would have been risky, and frankly I don’t believe is in Romney’s DNA.   His speech (and the speechwriters who framed Romney’s thoughts) went with a beeline to the residual pool of disaffected Obama voters who hoped for more production from the President to match his soaring rhetoric of 2008. Romney made the speech about competency, and since this is after all a contest between he and Obama, who would be the better competent in chief.

He made the argument rather well, but without the symphonic tones of the Cicero lectoring before him, Marco Rubio.  Recognizing President Obama’s residual likability advantage in polls, Romney did not try to paint the President as uncaring or disconnected, but simply not up to the task of management of a enterprise as complex as America.  Echoing Clint Eastwood’s quirky tome on Obama earlier in which Eastwood said, “And when somebody doesn’t do the job, we got to let them go.”  Romney stated it in terms of the disillusionment he believes is out there:

 If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn’t you feel that way now that he’s President Obama? You know there’s something wrong with the kind of job he’s done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him.

Romney pointed towards President Obama’s tendency to put the position of American President in a different kind of metaphysical calling, as a global arbiter of morality and fairness, not the elected representative speaking for, and standing up for,  the American people.  This dissonance from the American purpose was perfectly framed in Romney’s best line in the speech:

President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. MY promise…is to help you and your family.

Romney spent the greater part of the speech outlining the relative ordinariness of his upbringing and personhood, ordinary in the extraordinary way that seems to be a recurrent theme in American success stories – immigrant routes, one generation sacrificing so that the next generation may prosper, the importance of family, the willingness to try and fail ultimately to succeed – all endearing elements of the Romney story that perhaps may have provided some softened nuance to the media so determined to paint him as some kind of uncaring capitalist hedge fund manager.  To my ears, however this section seemed somewhat disjointed and overly long, and lacking in connectivity to Romney’s argument of competence.

Conclusively, however, Romney eventually restored managerial competency to the forefront and laid out an evidence and results based tone to a Romney administration, a stark contrast to Obama’s cork in the ocean journey of no budgeting, no adjustments, and no practical plan for the looming crises:

And unlike the President, I have a plan to create 12 million new jobs. It has 5 steps.

First, by 2020, North America will be energy independent by taking full advantage of our oil and coal and gas and nuclear and renewables.

Second, we will give our fellow citizens the skills they need for the jobs of today and the careers of tomorrow. When it comes to the school your child will attend, every parent should have a choice, and every child should have a chance.

Third, we will make trade work for America by forging new trade agreements. And when nations cheat in trade, there will be unmistakable consequences.

Fourth, to assure every entrepreneur and every job creator that their investments in America will not vanish as have those in Greece, we will cut the deficit and put America on track to a balanced budget.

And fifth, we will champion SMALL businesses, America’s engine of job growth. That means reducing taxes on business, not raising them. It means simplifying and modernizing the regulations that hurt small business the most. And it means that we must rein in the skyrocketing cost of healthcare by repealing and replacing Obamacare…

The speech as a summation of all the collected voices of this convention was a success in reminding all what American exceptionalism is all about.  That it is not enough to field a team of stars, strivers, and dreamers, but humbly direct them with competent management , is the foundation on which Mitt Romney is staking his claim to the American Presidency.  It may not be enough to get Romney eventually on Mt Rushmore, but it may be the perfect recipe to restore balance and adult standards to a shaky America that is concerned that our leaders are playing loose with our destiny.

Ramparts has spent the better part of two years intermittently raving about a wonky, generally unknown congressman from Wisconsin as the next coming of Reagan.  Aware of this man’s spot on seriousness about problem solving, his earnest, absolutely natural way with people of all stripes, and his capacity to present the most complex issues in ways that anyone can understand, digest, and commit to participating in the solution have marked him in Ramparts as the leader we have yearned for to restore America to her immense capacities for opportunity, productivity, and moral persuasion.  At times it seemed he would be held back by his youthfulness, his “position in line of succession” so fixated upon by the Republican Party over the years, or his desire to stay in the weeds of budget crafting in Congress. It seemed he would resist the calling to avoid placing his young children in the harsh lights of national prominence.  Maybe, he just didn’t have it in his “gut”, to give his professional life up to the non-stop demands of a national candidate.

Enough already.  Thank you, Mitt Romney.  He’s here and he’s every bit the one we have been waiting for.

Paul Ryan wowed the convention and the national audience with a tour de force performance that only enhances his building legend.  He has always been articulate, a great communicator in the mold of his idol Reagan, a warrior for the cause- but who knew he could deliver a political speech like that?  It certainly wasn’t present in his acceptance speech in Virginia a few weeks ago. There, in front of that large crowd,  he was nervous, fidgety, and halting to the task.  This speech was on a whole nother level – crisp, confident, interactive, devastating to his opponents without sounding arrogant or mean spirited, and perfectly timed, building to a crescendo that had his audience yelling and gasping for more.  Ronald Reagan, when he finally received adulation for his communicating skills was a seasoned older politician reflecting back to a better time. Paul Ryan was more John Fitzgerald Kennedy, full of youthful energy, can-do spirit, and forwardly confident.

The speech was perfectly written, full of lines that resonate as little sun brightened jewels on the beach, though on closer inspection had the painful sting of  little jellyfish:

I’m the newcomer to this campaign.  So let me share a first impression.   I have never seen opponents so silent about their record, and so  desperate to keep their power.  They have run out of ideas. Their moment  came and went.  Fear and division is all they’ve got left.  With  all of their attack ads the president is just throwing away money…and he is pretty experienced at that.

and

You — you the American people of this country were cut out of the deal.   What did taxpayers get out of the Obama stimulus? More debt.  That  money wasn’t just spent and wasted, it was borrowed, spent and wasted…

and

But we are four years into this presidency. The issue is not the economy that  Barack Obama inherited, not the economy as he envisions, but this economy  that we are living.     College graduates should not have to  live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.

Paul Ryan took the current Administration to the tool shed for a whuppin’ and never once looked beastly doing it.  In Kennedy fashion, he re-acquainted us with the inherent tools each of us has with the rights guaranteed in our founding documents to strive for better, to not accept the maudlin future that has been placed before us.

Now when I was waiting tables, washing dishes, or mowing lawns for money, I  never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life. I was on my own  path, my own journey, an American journey, where I could think for myself, decide for myself, define happen as for myself.  That is what we do in  this country.  That is the American dream.          That’s freedom and I will  take it any day over the supervision and sanctimony of the central planners…

and

We have responsibilities, one to another.  We do not each face the world  alone.  And the greatest of all responsibilities, is that of the strong  to protect the weak. The truest measure of any society is how it treats those  who cannot defend or care for themselves.        Each of these great moral  ideas is essential to democratic government, to the rule of law, to life in a  humane and decent society.  They are the moral creed of our country, as  powerful in our time, as on the day of America’s founding.  They are self-evident and unchanging, and sometimes, even presidents need reminding,  that our rights come from nature and God, and not from government…

and

The right that makes all the difference now, is the right to choose our own  leaders.  And you are entitled to the clearest possible choice, because  the time for choosing is drawing near.     So here is our  pledge.     We will not duck the tough issues, we will  lead.     We will not spend the next four years blaming  others, we will take responsibility.     We will not try to  replace our founding principles, we will reapply our founding principles.

Paul Ryan appears to be some Ronald Reagan and some John Kennedy, but in the end he is all Paul Ryan.  Mitt Romney has done us all a service by putting this special leader on the national stage at a time when the country is thirsting for people who are the pathfinders to a better future.  It speaks very well of Romney.  Tonight, we will find out if Romney’s grasp of the task is as developed as his skill in picking the people who can accomplish such difficult tasks before us.

The first day of the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida was the culmination of the Republican Party’s change in strategy since the thrashing delivered to them at the hands of the Democrat Party and President Obama in the 2006 and 2008 elections, respectively.  In baseball terms, the Republicans have pursued a “Billy Beane” strategy.  Billy Beane is the legendary Oakland Athletics general manager who has built winners on the contrarian strategy of building talent pools in the minor leagues, meshing together so called “no-names” with specific skill sets into a cohesive team, and letting the “celebrity” big money ballplayers go.  The Democrats have the ultimate “celebrity” player in President Obama – all monies, support, and aspirations flow through him to the exclusion of any other talent, despite his rather worrisome statistical performance the last three and one half years.  The Republicans have instead developed an astonishing number of talented “no-names” with an array of skill sets, and have built a significant pool of next generation players that may yet dominate the electoral process. The impressions of the first night speakers of the RNC is that the bench is deep, indeed.

The Natural:           Mia Love is the republican candidate for the 4th congressional district in Utah and she showed herself to be the “Natural” star in the making that everyone has been whispering about.  She is a Democrat Party stereotype machine’s worst nightmare – African American, female, Mormon, daughter of Haitian immigrants, smart as a whip and conservative as the day is long. The mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, she was the Tea Party’s human tornado at the district convention, coming out of nowhere to destroy her establishment competition and take the congressional seat nomination.  Her success gives lie to the farcical stereotype propagated by Democrats that the conservative message is skin deep.  In the nation’s most consistently conservative state, Utah, the rising star is winning with the message of limited government, responsible fiscalism, and individual freedom, and the shade of her skin is mattering not one wit.  Her speech last night was well sculpted, articulate, and shining in its conviction.  She is in the baseball vernacular, “a five tool” player- runs, throws, defends, hits, and hits with power – and Utah which has had several near misses on the national stage – Hatch, Housmann, Leavitt – may have its star coming out party last night.

The Governors –  While President Obama has attacked the recession with the ham-handed technique of throwing 6 trillion dollars of deficit spending at it, a murderer’s row of effective Republican state governors have been succeeding at turning around their state’s fiscal messes and restoring sanity to the budgetary process.  The emerging stars of a nation wide wave brought in the election 2010 were on the dais last night, and all were worth listening to.  Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, the winning general of one of the bitterest political wars of the last several decades, spoke to the importance of reform in achieving a voter consensus.  He noted that voters will reward fiscal discipline and need for sacrifice, if the issues are presented to them as adults, and that reform doesn’t have to mean another word for “giveaway”. Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey framed the keynote speech in similar terms of “Adult” conversations, and that the electorate understands what made America the economic superpower of the 20th century, and what level of coordinated sacrifice is needed to keep it the superpower for the 21st. Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia and Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina argued as to what diversity in approach can mean to the manufacturing base and job creation, and that winners and losers in job creation need to evolved, not selected by the system.  The overwhelming tone of each of these speakers is that competence wins, and truthful conversations with the voters can be popular notions.

The Hispanic Conservative – Shining brightly were two conservative voices of the emerging hispanic hue to the American story. Hispanics have become the battleground demographic for votes between the parties, now that the African American vote consensus has becoming rigidly fixed to the government centered philosophy of security and safety net.  The hispanic vote is appearing more diverse, with different strains from the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America, and generational native bornes all deflected the value curves differently.  A vote lost by more than 30% McCain to Obama, the hispanic consensus is still malleable- more generational family oriented, marriage centered, and concerned about opportunity more than assurance as the driving economic value.  This has not been lost on either party.  Senate candidate Ted Cruz of Texas presented his speech without podium or prompter, speaking directly to the camera and the hall and was faultlessly articulate, a heretofore unknown republican candidate virtue.  More importantly, he defined the constitution as a universal document, as magnificently protective of new  immigrant rights as a seven generation Mayflower claimant. A two language lector who has argued before the Supreme Court, Ted Cruz is going to give Marco Rubio a run for his money in representing the new hispanic American consensus.  Luce Vela Fortuno, wife of the governor of Puerto Rico, and successful lawyer in her own right, reminded the audience that the principles of limited government and reduced capital gains taxes have been as attractive to a Spanish language population in Puerto Rico as anywhere else in the United States, seeing a surge in employment and business opportunity that would be the envy of many “blue” states.  Along with other stars such as Marco Rubio, Senator Sandoval of Nevada, and Governor Martinez of New Mexico, the battle to be the philosophical representative of the American Hispanic is on.

The Turncoat:   Artur Davis had one difficult job last night. Former democrat representative from Alabama and a co-nominator of President Obama at the 2008 Democrat convention, he had to explain his willingness to turn on his previous party and enter the lion’s den of the opposition possibly viewed as no more than a blow in the wind turncoat.  No need to worry- Artur Davis was spot on.  Mr. Davis did not spend anytime facetiously explaining how he had suddenly become a conservative; he knew his audience wasn’t that dumb.  He simply explained that when it came down to it, President Obama’s hollywood staging and actor’s voice was not sufficient to overcome the progressive sense in Mr. Davis’s mind that Obama’s substance was lacking and his actions progressively destructive to his constituents.  He intimated in the end it is not enough to want something to be true; to get things done having core principles of managing with intelligence and constructiveness a naion’s destiny is paramount, and Obama’s wool has been lifted from Mr. Davis’s eyes.  I’m not expecting two votes to change as a result of Artur Davis’s conversion, but listening to him I believed him, and heard the inklings of independent thought processes beginning to emerge from a locked down African American consensus.

The Women:  The cluster of female talent presenting as strong leaders in the Republican party is making it clear to me that the last white male/white male Republican ticket we are going to see is Romney Ryan.  The number of female voices that have moved beyond the “soccer mom in tennis shoes” nonsense is everywhere, and the bench is going to produce some terrific candidates next round.  Nikki Haley of South Carolina, Kelly Allote of New Hampshire, and Susana Martinez are hitters, and hitters with power that have been borne of the Sarah Palin mold, full of her energy and connectivity with the public without her seeming “unpreparedness” for executive office.  Palin’s heroic battle with the vicious sexism of  the establish media that wants to pigeon hole women leaders, and will go to any length to destroy the diversity in womens’ views of the world, has been sacrificial for the next generation of strong Republican female conservatives.  If Palin wasn’t “the One”, she was at least the “john the Baptist” heralding the coming of the next wave.  For that alone she should have been able to be able to add her voice to emerging female inflection of her party.

What we thought we knew about Mitt Romney changed forever at 800am central time yesterday.  The number of people who think they should be President of the United States is immense, but the number of people who actually have projected beyond the proverbial plea to ‘pick me’, to articulate why the nation should give uniquely them such responsibility- well, you can count them on your fingers.   With the naming of Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney has shown himself to be far from the madding presidential crowd.  Mitt Romney turns out to be one principled, dead serious candidate for President.

President Roosevelt’s Vice President John Nance Garner was once quoted as saying the position of Vice President “wasn’t worth a bucket of warm spit”.  This unpleasant analogy for many years defined the process by Presidential candidates of viewing the Vice Presidential candidacy as a ticket balancer or a sop to alternate factions of the party, then basically ejecting the Vice President, once elected, to the administration’s wilderness.  The Vice President exemplified by Garner was a hand shaker, a funeral chaser, and a yes man with remotely no significant interactions with Presidential policy formation.  When another Roosevelt Vice President, Harry Truman, became President with the death of Roosevelt in 1945, he stated “I felt as if the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me” as he was thrust into the Presidency, having been completely out of Roosevelt’s inner circle, and thoroughly out of the loop as to any of the current issues, directives or secrets of a nation in perilous war.  The considerations regarding Vice Presidents have evolved, however, and some modern Presidents have looked to their Vice Presidents as more of a secondary counsel, then a ‘one heart beat away’ threat.  The most profound example of this was George W Bush’s selection of Dick Cheney, who offered him no identifiable  electoral college advantage, but a lifetime of experience in matters of state he could mine for sage advice.

Paul Ryan is the uber Cheney.  In selecting Ryan, Romney had to know he was opening himself up to possibility that America would see the election as determined by the nation’s comfort with the Ryan plan to save America, not the Romney plan.   Paul Ryan has over the past four years positioned himself as President Obama’s primary philosophical nemesis, the intellectual counter to the idealistic vagaries of Obamacare, Obamonomics, and permanent restructuring America as an Obamination.  This is crystal clear anytime the two men are in the same room together – Obama has a profound dislike for Ryan because no one can continue to pretend Obama is the smartest one in the room.  Ryan has worked his way under Obama’s skin so deep that Obama has gone out of his way to upstage him, denigrate him, and destroy him.  As Obama’s foil Treasury Secretary Tim Geitner stated, when confronted with Ryan’s crushing arguments regarding the administration’s stunning lack of any conceptualization  of dealing with the spiraling debt they were creating for future generations, “We’re not coming before you to say we have a definitive solution to our long term problem.  What we do know is that we don’t like yours.”

The selection of Paul Ryan says more about Mitt Romney then almost any other action he could have taken.  It shows Mitt Romney to be a man very comfortable in his own ego and intelligence to allow such a transcendent mind to be constantly compared to his own on the campaign trail, and potentially, into policy discussions at a Romney White House.  It shows Mitt Romney to be considerably more principled than the initial glossy version presented to the public in the primaries, a candidate willing to make this an election of hugely stark contrasts, of two diametrically opposed, competing visions of America.  It shows Mitt Romney after all to be a man of fundamental values – free market vision, results oriented governance, constitutional clarity, and willing to take on problems no dominant nation has yet to solve coherently without public turmoil.  The process by which Romney selected his running mate turns out not so much about the elevation of Ryan,  but instead a profound focusing of what has been a blurry Presidential candidate in Romney.  In a game changing decision, the questions and doubts as to the core presence of a Romney as  principled  conservative are gone forever.  He has made the 2012 election, and risked his entire lifelong ambition to be President, on the notion that he is actually who he said he was.