Moe Lane

This is an important point:

In what liberals are sure to describe as a fit of denial, [House Budget Chairman Paul] Ryan argues that Republicans are actually “much better positioned” to advance conservative policy alternatives during Obama’s second term than they were during the 2012 campaign. He predicts that once Americans begin to feel the practical effects of Obama’s policies, many of which have yet to be fully implemented, they will “yearn” for change. Voters may have endorsed such policies in theory, but according to Ryan, they are in for a rude awakening when Obamacare and other aspects of the president’s agenda take full effect over the next couple of years.

“I think it’s different now that the rubber is hitting the road with respect to Obama’s policies,” Ryan says. “We ran against the Obama policies before they were implemented. Obama was able to protect them with his rhetoric, but he was never measured against his results. Now, in the second term, they’re implementing these things, they’re putting details in writing, regulations are coming out, and we’re seeing just how different these proposals are than the rhetoric that was used to sell them.”

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Because apparently math is hard.

The White House has informed House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that it will miss the legal deadline for sending a budget to Congress.

Acting Budget Director Jeff Zients told Ryan (R-Wis.) late Friday that the budget will not be delivered by Feb. 4, as required by law, a House aide said.

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I think that I can taste just the faintest touch of bitterness in this article:

When Mr. Ryan returned to Capitol Hill last week, he was met with a standing ovation from his Republican colleagues, a bear hug from Mr. Boehner and the hope from conservatives that he would hold the line on taxes and other spending.

[snip]

According to aides and others close to Mr. Ryan, he is as focused on doing the job before him as he was on winning the vice-presidential race. “We just sort of picked ourselves back up, and we are all back into our lives and jobs,” Tobin Ryan said. “And frankly, I see Paul doing the same thing.”

It always annoys the Left when people from our side indeed pick themselves up and dust themselves off.  We never wallow enough in despair to suit them, honestly.  (more…)

Via the Foundry comes these two word clouds of yesterday’s debate:

…and here’s an interesting game to play: quick, which one is which? (more…)

Yeah, I’m thinking Barack Obama didn’t really think that Joe Biden saved the re-election campaign last night:

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Short version: if they were planning to get Joe Biden to save the campaign, well, they need a Plan C.  It was not an exercise in applied brutality like last week’s debate; but I seem to remember that Joe Biden wasn’t this much of an asshole when he was debating Sarah Palin.  That seems to have cost him among CNN’s undecided voters, who were generally meh towards the man.

One note: undecideds did react favorably to Biden on abortion.  Keep that in mind.

Anyway… won’t move the needle on its own, which means that the GOP won on points.  Ryan came across as knowing what the hell he was talking about, which is precisely the last thing that Joe Biden wanted to have happen.  Forward!

It’s one where you get interrupted when you try to spin the stupid things that your candidates say.

For those without video, it shows: George Stephanopoulos (!) playing a clip of Joe Biden’s infamous ‘buried’ gaffe*; asking Robert Gibbs whether gaffes like this will hurt the Vice President in his upcoming debate with Paul Ryan**; and stopping Gibbs cold when Gibbs tried to claim that Biden was talking about the last eight years*** when Biden clearly said four.  Pure entertainment, in other words: oh, I’m sure that there were plenty of softballs and whatnot.  It’s Stephanopoulos, after all.  But perhaps the Media is figuring out that smacking the Democrats around a bit promises to be good for the ratings… (more…)

I do not think that this will have the impact that Mother Jones thinks that it will.

For those without video, it shows Paul Ryan calmly noting that a) it makes sense to have a pro-commerce and pro-business atmosphere in the United States that will make people from other countries want to park their money in our bank and b) you can raise revenue without raising taxes by growing the economy.  While I understand that Mother Jones is almost violently opposed to pro-business and anti-taxation ideas, they are somewhat hampered by the minor detail that Paul Ryan’s next debate opponent is going to be Joe Biden, former Senator from Delaware.  Watching Biden trying to explain why it’s all right for Delaware to deliberately and unashamedly pursue business-friendly policies, but not all right for the USA to ramp up to do the same on the international scale, would be hysterical – but not as much as the Left’s reaction.  They still haven’t recovered from the beatdown that Romney gave Obama, you see.

Via AoSHQ and Riehl World View.

A Mitt Romney staffer, explaining why you’re about to see campaign ads everywhere:

“Time is short,” said one campaign aide. “We have $100 million we’ve just raised.  If you look at our burn rate to date and our cash on hand, there’s not much more we can spend on infrastructure. So we’ve got to start spending our general election funds in a big way, because you know what the value of that money is on the day after the election? Zero.”

Entertainingly: former NH governor John Sununu used the phrase ‘carpet bomb’ to describe the planned ad campaign. When challenged on this language, Romney-Ryan officials changed it… to ‘daisy cutter.’  Which is accurate, by the way: carpet bombing is far less precise as a method for flattening something.  Plus, it’s just as likely to give progressives the vapors!  Win-win, really.

Moe Lane

Such an innocent looking passage, to spark such panic from the Left. 

From Paul Ryan’s convention speech yesterday:

President Barack Obama came to office during an economic crisis, as he has reminded us a time or two.  Those were very tough days, and any fair measure of his record has to take that into account.  My home state voted for President Obama. When he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it, especially in Janesville, where we were about to lose a major factory.

A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: “I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.”  That’s what he said in 2008.

Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year.  It is locked up and empty to this day.  And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight.

This is, by the way, a perfectly accurate statement.  There was a GM plant in Janesville.  Barack Obama did make a speech there in 2008.  He did, in that speech, make those comments*.  And the plant did not “last another year” – despite, I should note, the Obama administration’s bailout of GM that the administration is kind-of, sort-of touting as an ‘achievement.’  These are all true things; which has not kept the Left from screaming otherwise, to the point where the Obama campaign has officially (and in my opinion, unwisely) called Paul Ryan a liar. (more…)

So, to review the bidding: when Romney picked Ryan, Establishment Democrats (and their liberal lackeys) cackled in response that the GOP would now have to hide from the entire state of Florida, thanks to Mediscare.  No way that they were going to go all-in, there.

Yeah, about that?

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US News and World Report, in the process of pointing out that, hey, maybe we need a little whiteboard time in our political debate right now:

Courtesy of the White House pool report on Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Virginia, the same day as the Republicans-want-to-keep-you-in-chains comment. After a voter asked about Social Security, Biden said: “Hey, by the way, let’s talk about Social Security. Number one, I guarantee you, flat guarantee you, there will be no changes in Social Security. I flat guarantee you.” No wonder the White House has stopped issuing transcripts of Biden’s events. Even the Washington Post editorial board found itself “disheartened by his pandering comment,” given that unless changes are made, Social Security will be bankrupt by 2033. That’s when voters like me, who are in our 40s, will be retiring.

Ironically, I don’t really recognize this as a ‘change:’ I figured out about a decade ago that there will be no Social Security for me when I retire.  The GOP being able to fix things to the point where there will be?  …Yeah, that would be a change.

(H/T: @cayankee)