Mitt – A Big Hearted Caring and Decent Guy… Who Can Fix the Economy

Romney’s life has been characterized by little-told stories of generosity and service

PHOTO: Charles Krupa/AP – h/t to the Daily

Mitt Romney, seen above visiting a Lutheran church in New Hampshire; a man who does not talk about his good deeds. As his wife Ann has said, “Mitt doesn’t like to talk about how he has helped others because he sees it as a privilege, not a political talking point.”  and Greg Gutfeld co-host of the Five and host of Redeye observed, “Mitt Romney is an alpha-male in a religion that prizes humility… ”

Mitt Romney is a big hearted caring and decent guy whose main hobbies are his family and his faith, which includes helping others, and based on feedback from those who know him he is funny, generous with both his time and money, and has endless energy that he will use along with his business expertise to turn America and our sinking economy around.  Mitt Romney has never failed at anything he has done, says his wife Ann, and “Mitt will not fail” as president of the United States if we give him the opportunity.

Ann and Mitt Romney with 16 of their 18 grandchildren… two more have been born since this photo was taken

Up until the Republican National Convention in Tampa most people paying attention to the election process seemed to feel that Romney (and his VP choice Paul Ryan) were capable of turning our Country around including: creating a climate that would create private sector jobs, reducing the debt, lowering the ever rising costs of everything from milk to gasoline, taking on government entitlement spending to make sure necessary programs would survive for future generations, and even restoring our AAA credit rating, etc.  But some people still didn’t feel that they really knew Mitt Romney and in our present day 24-hour media cycle and touchy feely world that connection is more important than ever before.

Mitt is a private humble man but many believe the reluctance of highlighting his Mormonism has kept the tales of his generosity and service out of the political limelight, even more.  But the words of Ann and Mitt Romney and Mormon speakers at the RNC, marking a sharp departure from Romney's reticence on faith, seem to have turned the tide and made a whole lot of people say… “I like that guy… I like those guys…  I can see them in the White House and think they can do the job America needs!”.

The Daily:

One cold December day in the early 1980s, Mitt Romney loaded up his Gran Torino with firewood and brought it to the home of a single mother whose heat had been shut off just days before Christmas.  This is one story surrounded by considerable lore but unknown to most advisers — Romney seems to only have alluded to it once publicly, in 2007.  Romney got a phone call from a Mormon bishop in Utah who said the adult daughter of one of his members — a single mother who did not belong to the church — needed help. The woman’s heating oil had been turned off in the dead of winter.  He enlisted his young sons to help, loading up his Gran Torino with firewood, he drove the car from his family’s house in the Boston suburb of Belmont to the woman’s home in the Dorchester neighborhood downtown.

“I remember well loading it all up,” Tagg Romney recalled. “And we drove it to her house and made a fire for her and dropped off quite a bit of firewood so the family would be able to keep warm.”

Years after a business partner and close family friend, who worked with Mitt at Boston Consulting Group and later at the private equity firm Bain Capital, died unexpectedly of a heart attack, Romney helped the man’s surviving daughter, Ellen Hummel, who was only 5 when her dad died, with loans for tuition to help her pay tuition at Columbia Medical School; loans he forgave when she graduated.

“I went to him asking him for help and he freely gave it,” said Dr. Ellen K. Hummel, today a general practitioner at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Just before graduation, she received a note from Romney, forgiving the loan. “It was a Christmas letter,” she said. “It was something caring and it was something saying ‘This is a gift.’ ”

Then there’s Kim Clark, the president of Brigham Young University-Idaho… When an adverse reaction to medication landed his 16-year-old son Michael in the hospital in 1997, Clark turned to Romney.

“I called Mitt because I wanted to give Michael a blessing,” Clark told The Daily. “Whenever in our family we had situations arise we always called Mitt because we knew he would always come.” Even after it was clear the teenager would recover, Romney remained at the hospital with the family through the night.

Stories like these — of long hours spent with grieving families, financial assistance to those in need and timely help given to strangers whether asked for or not — abound in the adult life of the Republican presidential candidate. Many of them, but definitely not all, are connected to his work as a Mormon bishop.

And yet these stories have been largely absent on the campaign trail.

Some supporters believe Mitt isn’t touting them because it’s impossible to separate the good works he’s done from his Mormon faith, which might have been partially true, but as his wife says, “Mitt is a private person and considers it a privilege to help others… not something to take credit for on the campaign trail.

But taken together, the stories point to a central contradiction between Romney the candidate and Romney the person. In short, a man painted by the Obama administration as a heartless corporate raider who can’t relate to people actually has a history of doing remarkably kind things for those in need; many people close to Romney find the contradiction maddening.

“The people that know him — the picture the media paints is not the Mitt that I know,” Romney’s oldest son, Tagg, told The Daily. “And I wish I could do something about it. I can’t tell you how many people tell me that.”

Democrats scoff that whatever good Romney has done in his personal life doesn’t mean his policies would be any less destructive for those same struggling people.

“No one is questioning whether or not Mitt Romney has a nice family or has lived a life of success in which he’s tried to give something back,” said Jen Psaki, a Democratic strategist and former communications staffer in the Obama White House. “But that doesn’t matter to people who are still struggling, families that are trying to pay for college, people trying to pay for health insurance, middle class families who are trying to make ends meet. Romney hasn’t shown a plan to help them. That’s what voters are looking for, and he leaves a lot to be desired on that front.” 

Romney actually has laid out a very detailed plan, and did so during the primaries.  It is posted on his website.  And now he and the partner as Romney and the campaign call vice presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, have a short 5-point plan they talk about on the stump.  The Romney-Ryan plan will create 12 million jobs.

Rick Wilson, a Florida-based Republican strategist who is not affiliated with the Romney campaign said recently “I do think they should tell the personal stories because it rounds out who Mitt is… and he is a great guy! It also shows people that here’s a man who lives his personal values — he’s not just a politician. The fact that they never made a big deal out of this stuff says something itself.”

Romney and the Romney campaign needed to tell Mitt’s personal side tales and finally did as well as shining a light on his faith at the Republican National Convention and in at least two recent interviews with CNN as well as with Chris Wallace on Fox.  (There have also been several brutal indictments on Mormonism showcased by the liberal media lately, so beware.  Something that is pretty surprising for a party who put up the first Catholic, John F. Kennedy, for president, who generally promotes secularism (so why should anyone’s religion matter to them) and bristles at comments about President Obama’s connections to or at least his affinity for Islam and who consider themselves so welcoming… noted by evangelical and former Governor of Arkansas and 2008 GOP presidential primary candidate Mike Huckabee in his speech at the Republican Convention in Tampa.)

Mike Huckabee stated:

“Let me clear the air about whether guys like me would only support an evangelical … I care far less as to where Mitt Romney takes his family to church than I do about where he takes this country.”

Video: Pam Finlayson's Full RNC Speech 8/30/12

Video: Touching Story of Oparowskis and Mitt Romney

A top Romney strategist said, the campaign has preferred not to engage in an argument over likability against a personally popular president at the expense of fostering Romney’s image as a fix-it man for the economy.  But each day, President Obama is showing the American people that he really isn’t capable, isn’t up for the job and isn’t even such a nice guy.  And just in the days running up to the Democrat National Convention the attacks on Romney, Ryan and the Republican National Convention coming from the left have been baseless, mean-spirited and in many cases down right lies… whereas, even agreed to by the media from both sides, the tone of the GOP Convention with few exceptions was overall positive.

There is no escaping the fact that Romney’s many kind acts, some of which were first reported in the recent book “The Real Romney” were sharply at odds with his persona on the campaign trail before the convention.  But both Ann Romney and Mitt’s acceptance speech showed America a very different Mitt.

Stories like those highlighted above and many more are legion, like Romney gathering neighbors in a quick effort to clear out a burning house until firefighters arrived on the scene. Showing up unsolicited to clear a hornet’s nest near an injured church member’s house. Organizing a New York City search for a business partner’s missing daughter… a story actually told by Romney’s campaign in a 2008 ad reprised by a super PAC supporting him this year.

Religion aside, any politician who talks up his good deeds runs a risk of appearing a bit too fond of himself, something President Obama has been accused of more than once. But with Romney unable to shake off his buttoned-up corporate image, constantly pushed by Team Obama, sharing his personal experiences and inner self was crucial and it appears they hit the right note at the convention… although now the left is complaining that the RNC convention didn’t have enough meat, even though Romney and the RNC accomplished exactly what they needed to.

“People need to get to know a man who’s a potential president of the United States,” said GOP strategist Wilson . “The more you fill in the blanks the better for Romney.  It makes him human and it mitigates the plutocrat attacks.”  The personalization of Mitt Romney made a lot of Americans believe when he said:  'My Promise Is to Help You and Your Family' 

 17 Million Evangelical Voters… Who Did Not Vote in 2008, Can Lead to Obama's Defeat and from what the latest polls and buzz on twitter, facebook and the blogosphere are showing, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have now tapped into that vote.  The GOP convention also made it very clear that there is no conservative or Romney war on women and that the Republican tent includes blacks, Latinos and people of all stripes.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are the right men for the times.  They have the know how and ideas that President Obama and his team are lacking to turn around America’s economy, create jobs and take control of the run-away debt.  Why would anyone believe that another 4-years of Obama-Biden will make anything better with his/their record…. Especially when you can have a successful businessman with the added experience as both a Governor and leading a project as large as turning around the Utah Olympics… plus having the Chairman of House Budget Committee on the team, in Romney-Ryan instead?  The choice has never been clearer. Even Obama realizes that Romney and his advisors know what they are doing… He has now hired two former Bain guys to takeover the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).  And the Obama’s are so sure that America will make the right choice that they have already bought a new house in Hawaii with a move-in date of January 2013.

Mitt Romney Convention Intro Video

CBS Airs Shocking, Must-See Positive Video About Mitt Romney

For anyone who missed Romney’s Convention Speech… See: Mitt Romney Gets Personal in Fiery and Poignant Speech – He Gave America a True Choice

Former Clinton strategist and advisor Dick Morris said, “Romney's speech last night at the GOP Convention hit the mark. ‘If Obama tries to be JFK eloquent but remote, Romney was Reagan last night. He was open, approachable, empathetic and idealistic. Tune in!’”

And Michael Reagan said: “Romney could not be better. When Dad died we lost AMERICAS cheerleader -- TONIGHT we have a new one. Bravo!”

The RNC played a Reagan Tribute early in the evening on the final night at the convention

Personal Romney Information:

· His full Name is: Willard Mitt Romney.

· He was Born: March 12, 1947 and is 65 years old.

· His Father: George W. Romney, former Governor of the State of Michigan.

· He was Raised in: Bloomfield Hills , Michigan.

· He is Married to: Ann Lois (Davies) Romney since 1969; they have five children. (Mitt says his kids and grandkids are his main hobby, not golf or tennis. They sent out Christmas cards of the ‘whole’ family, like above, as governor.)

· Education: (One year at Stanford) and then completed his B.A. from Brigham Young University, J.D. and M.B.A. from Harvard University. 

· Religion: Mormon The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints. (Ann converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1966 on her own while Mitt was gone on his mission).

Working Background:

· After high school, he spent 30 months in France as a Mormon missionary. After going to both Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School simultaneously, he passed the Michigan bar, but never worked as an attorney.

· In 1984, he co-founded Bain Capital a private equity investment firm, one of the largest such firms in the United States.

· In 1994, he ran for Senator of Massachusetts and lost to Ted Kennedy.

· He was President and C.E.O. of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games.

· In 2002, he was elected Governor of the State of Massachusetts where he eliminated a 1.5 billion deficit (and their unemployment was around 4.5%).

Some Interesting and Noteworthy Facts about Romney:

· Bain Capital, starting with one small office supply store in Massachusetts , turned it into Staples; now over 2,000 stores employing 90,000 people.

· Bain Capital also worked to perform the same kinds of business miracles again and again, with companies like Domino’s, Sealy, Brookstone, Weather Channel, Burger King, Warner Music Group, Dollarama, Home Depot Supply, Bright Horizons, and many others.

· He was an unpaid volunteer campaign worker for his dad’s gubernatorial campaign 1 year.

· He accompanied and campaigned all over Michigan (unpaid) with his mother when she ran for Senator.

· He was an unpaid intern in his dad’s governor’s office for eight years.

· He was an unpaid bishop and stake president of his church for ten years.

· He was an unpaid President of the Salt Lake Olympic Committee for three years.

· He took no salary and was the unpaid Governor of Massachusetts for four years.

· He gave his entire inheritance from his parents to charity.

· Mitt Romney is one of the wealthiest self-made men in our country but has given more back to its citizens in terms of money, service and time than most men.

If you think you still need to know more about Mitt Romney here are a few reading suggestions: The Real Romney, No Apology, Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games, The Mormon Way of Doing Business: How Nine Western Boys Reached the Top of Corporate America  And check out his detailed plan at: http://www.mittromney.com/

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Shocking Newsweek Cover: Hit the Road, Barack - Why We Need a New President - Updated

NewsBusters:

After some of the recent Obama-loving/Romney-bashing Newsweek covers, the one hitting newsstands Monday is guaranteed to turn some heads.

Under the picture of our dear leader are the words, "Hit the Road, Barack: Why We Need a New Leader."

The article is written by Niall Ferguson, a British historian and economist that backed John McCain in 2008.

After an introduction, Ferguson made his case:

In his inaugural address, Obama promised “not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth.” He promised to “build the roads and bridges, the electric grids, and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.” He promised to “restore science to its rightful place and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.” And he promised to “transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.” Unfortunately the president’s scorecard on every single one of those bold pledges is pitiful.

He continued:

[T]he total number of private-sector jobs is still 4.3 million below the January 2008 peak. Meanwhile, since 2008, a staggering 3.6 million Americans have been added to Social Security’s disability insurance program. This is one of many ways unemployment is being concealed.

In his fiscal year 2010 budget—the first he presented—the president envisaged growth of 3.2 percent in 2010, 4.0 percent in 2011, 4.6 percent in 2012. The actual numbers were 2.4 percent in 2010 and 1.8 percent in 2011; few forecasters now expect it to be much above 2.3 percent this year.

Unemployment was supposed to be 6 percent by now. It has averaged 8.2 percent this year so far. Meanwhile real median annual household income has dropped more than 5 percent since June 2009. Nearly 110 million individuals received a welfare benefit in 2011, mostly Medicaid or food stamps.

Welcome to Obama’s America: nearly half the population is not represented on a taxable return—almost exactly the same proportion that lives in a household where at least one member receives some type of government benefit. We are becoming the 50–50 nation—half of us paying the taxes, the other half receiving the benefits.

And all this despite a far bigger hike in the federal debt than we were promised. According to the 2010 budget, the debt in public hands was supposed to fall in relation to GDP from 67 percent in 2010 to less than 66 percent this year. If only. By the end of this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), it will reach 70 percent of GDP. These figures significantly understate the debt problem, however. The ratio that matters is debt to revenue. That number has leapt upward from 165 percent in 2008 to 262 percent this year, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund. Among developed economies, only Ireland and Spain have seen a bigger deterioration.

Ferguson also took aim at the media's coverage of Obama:

Yet the public mistakes his administration’s astonishingly uninhibited use of political assassination for a coherent strategy. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London, the civilian proportion of drone casualties was 16 percent last year. Ask yourself how the liberal media would have behaved if George W. Bush had used drones this way. Yet somehow it is only ever Republican secretaries of state who are accused of committing “war crimes.”

Indeed. As we've seen in the past three and a half years, Obama can do virtually anything he wants and his media will either applaud or look the other away.

That said, after spending the bulk of his lengthy piece chronicling the current White House resident's missteps, Ferguson spoke glowingly about Paul Ryan:

He is one of only a handful of politicians in Washington who is truly sincere about addressing this country’s fiscal crisis....But one thing is clear. Ryan psychs Obama out. This has been apparent ever since the White House went on the offensive against Ryan in the spring of last year. And the reason he psychs him out is that, unlike Obama, Ryan has a plan—as opposed to a narrative—for this country. [...]

The voters now face a stark choice. They can let Barack Obama’s rambling, solipsistic narrative continue until they find themselves living in some American version of Europe, with low growth, high unemployment, even higher debt—and real geopolitical decline.

Or they can opt for real change: the kind of change that will end four years of economic underperformance, stop the terrifying accumulation of debt, and reestablish a secure fiscal foundation for American national security.

And this is actually Newsweek's cover story this week making one ask a simple question: Why?

Since Tina Brown's Daily Beast took over the failing magazine, it has been one of the most left-leaning publications in the country.

So why with less than three months to go before Election Day would they publish a 3,200-word cover story severely criticizing Obama whilst basically endorsing his opponent?

Could it be the Daily Beast/Newsweek combination has not been attracting the kind of readership they expected, and they believe a little objectivity was in order?

Or is this just a tiny dose of conservatism before a deluge of the most biased Obama-loving/Romney-bashing imaginable?

As the late Ed Hart used to say, we will know in the fullness of time.

(HT NB reader Dave Smith)

About the Author

Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters.

The article behind the Newsweek latest edition…

Niall Ferguson: Obama’s Gotta Go

Originally posted Aug 19, 2012 1:00 AM EDT

Why does Paul Ryan scare the president so much? Because Obama has broken his promises, and it’s clear that the GOP ticket’s path to prosperity is our only hope.

I was a good loser four years ago. “In the grand scheme of history,” I wrote the day after Barack Obama’s election as president, “four decades is not an especially long time. Yet in that brief period America has gone from the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. to the apotheosis of Barack Obama. You would not be human if you failed to acknowledge this as a cause for great rejoicing.”

Despite having been—full disclosure—an adviser to John McCain, I acknowledged his opponent’s remarkable qualities: his soaring oratory, his cool, hard-to-ruffle temperament, and his near faultless campaign organization.

Yet the question confronting the country nearly four years later is not who was the better candidate four years ago. It is whether the winner has delivered on his promises. And the sad truth is that he has not.

In his inaugural address, Obama promised “not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth.” He promised to “build the roads and bridges, the electric grids, and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.” He promised to “restore science to its rightful place and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.” And he promised to “transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.” Unfortunately the president’s scorecard on every single one of those bold pledges is pitiful.

In an unguarded moment earlier this year, the president commented that the private sector of the economy was “doing fine.” Certainly, the stock market is well up (by 74 percent) relative to the close on Inauguration Day 2009. But the total number of private-sector jobs is still 4.3 million below the January 2008 peak. Meanwhile, since 2008, a staggering 3.6 million Americans have been added to Social Security’s disability insurance program. This is one of many ways unemployment is being concealed.

In his fiscal year 2010 budget—the first he presented—the president envisaged growth of 3.2 percent in 2010, 4.0 percent in 2011, 4.6 percent in 2012. The actual numbers were 2.4 percent in 2010 and 1.8 percent in 2011; few forecasters now expect it to be much above 2.3 percent this year.

Unemployment was supposed to be 6 percent by now. It has averaged 8.2 percent this year so far. Meanwhile real median annual household income has dropped more than 5 percent since June 2009. Nearly 110 million individuals received a welfare benefit in 2011, mostly Medicaid or food stamps.

Welcome to Obama’s America: nearly half the population is not represented on a taxable return—almost exactly the same proportion that lives in a household where at least one member receives some type of government benefit. We are becoming the 50–50 nation—half of us paying the taxes, the other half receiving the benefits.

Niall Ferguson discusses Obama's broken promises on ‘Face the Nation.’

And all this despite a far bigger hike in the federal debt than we were promised. According to the 2010 budget, the debt in public hands was supposed to fall in relation to GDP from 67 percent in 2010 to less than 66 percent this year. If only. By the end of this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), it will reach 70 percent of GDP. These figures significantly understate the debt problem, however. The ratio that matters is debt to revenue. That number has leapt upward from 165 percent in 2008 to 262 percent this year, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund. Among developed economies, only Ireland and Spain have seen a bigger deterioration.

Not only did the initial fiscal stimulus fade after the sugar rush of 2009, but the president has done absolutely nothing to close the long-term gap between spending and revenue.

His much-vaunted health-care reform will not prevent spending on health programs growing from more than 5 percent of GDP today to almost 10 percent in 2037. Add the projected increase in the costs of Social Security and you are looking at a total bill of 16 percent of GDP 25 years from now. That is only slightly less than the average cost of all federal programs and activities, apart from net interest payments, over the past 40 years. Under this president’s policies, the debt is on course to approach 200 percent of GDP in 2037—a mountain of debt that is bound to reduce growth even further. Read full article HERE

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Technorati Tags: Newsweek,rats deserting the ship,Obama lies,real hope and change,SE Cupp,media,MSM,campaign lies,changing winds,news and politics,politics,Election 2012,2012 Election

Romney to Announce VP Pick – Insider Says Paul Ryan Will Be Vice Presidential Running Mate

AP, Reuters, and Fox say this leak has been verified… so I will take the chance that they are right.

The final short list — if there was one — was believed to include Ohio Rep. Rob Portman, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan… some believe perhaps also Florida Senator Marco Rubio and New Jersey Governor Chris Christy.   And some hopeful tea partiers were still praying for a miracle… for Rep. Allen West or Governor Sarah Palin.  But so far the word seems to be that most everyone (conservatives, Republicans and Independents) are happy with the Paul Ryan choice!  Ryan, Chairman of the House Budget Committee, is someone that everyone on the supposed short list, and their constituencies and followers, can support plus he brings the energy of youth to the ticket.  Ryan has also had the courage to go head to head with Obama and has proposed alternative plans for both a budget (more than once) and ObamaCare.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney plans to name Congressman Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate on Saturday in a move that will bring the debate over how to reduce government spending and debt to the forefront of the race for the White House.

A Republican official said Romney would introduce Ryan at the retired battleship USS Wisconsin - coincidentally named for Ryan's home state - in Norfolk at about 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT).

The announcement marks the end of a several month-long search for a running mate to challenge Democratic President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in the November 6th election, and this choice will serve to energize conservatives who staged a big effort in recent days to persuade Romney to pick Ryan.

It comes as Romney starts a bus tour on Saturday through four battleground states he needs to win in November - Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio.

Romney's move is a bold one as according to recent polls he finds himself suddenly falling behind slightly in what has been a neck-and-neck race with Obama in a campaign that is based largely on the weak U.S. economy.

The selection of Ryan, 42, brings a measure of youthful exuberance and energy to the Republican ticket as party activists prepare to gather in Tampa late this month for the convention that will formally nominate Romney as the presidential nominee. Romney aides hope the vice presidential choice and the enthusiasm produced by the convention will give him a bounce in the polls.  If the excitement the hours after the announced event and leak of Ryan’s name is an example, it will.

Conservatives had been urging Romney to pass over tried-and-true Republicans like Ohio Senator Rob Portman and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and instead go with Ryan. But many Republicans had wanted Romney to play it safe and go with either the more experienced Pawlenty or Portman. A Republican source said Portman got a call from Romney saying he had not received the running mate nod, and other reports said Pawlenty got a similar call.

Ryan's selection immediately draws attention to a budget plan which Ryan proposed as House budget chairman that would include unpopular cuts in government health programs for everyone including the elderly and poor. Democrats are eager to pounce on that issue, particularly in Florida, where many seniors live and which could be a critical state in the November election. And Team Obama and the Progressive Democrats have already signaled, even before the choice is official, that they will resort to the same lies of Ryan throwing granny over the cliff even though that campaign has already been proven to be false. But what else do you do when you have nothing else to run on? We can only hope that Granny and Gramps are a lot smarter than the Dems think they are!

Romney's decision to pick Ryan showed he is comfortable with having this debate over the future role of government and ways to rein in out-of-control spending and debt. He has endorsed parts of Ryan's budget. The Weekly Standard magazine reported that the Romney campaign had begun to prepare a vigorous effort to support Ryan as the vice presidential pick and in obvious support they ran the piece:  It's the Romney-Ryan Plan; Why Not the Romney-Ryan Ticket?

"Conservatives are going to be very energized because this is a demonstration that Romney was willing to make a bold pick," said Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak. "It may not be what he wanted to do three or six months ago, but I think this is as significant a choice as he could have made."

But Bill Burton, senior strategist at the pro-Obama group Priorities USA, suggested Ryan could prove a liability.  "If it's really Ryan, Romney will have picked one of the only people who could have had an impact in the race. But not the way he wants," he said in a tweet.  But then again, what do you expect?  Juan Williams, Fox News pundit, said that picking was a bold and courageous choice on the part of Mitt Romney, but warned of the left’s certain attack strategy.  Campaign strategist Ed Rollins supported the choice.

Often likening Ryan to Ronald Reagan, conservatives say the Wisconsin lawmaker's supposed drawbacks as a candidate - mostly stemming from the steep cuts he has proposed in social safety net programs - are actually strengths that could bring heft, content and perhaps a spark to Romney's campaign. They are the proposals that are necessary to get us out of our financial mess.

Romney bonded with Ryan during the Wisconsin Republican primary battle last spring when Ryan campaigned enthusiastically for the former Massachusetts governor and they often appeared together.  For Romney, an outsider to Washington, Ryan would provide some expertise in dealing with Congress. But as a long-time member of the House, he lacks executive experience, but as a former governor, businessman and head of the Utah Olympics, Mitt brings that to the ticket.

And as you can see from the photos here the two men seem to gel and genuinely like each other. Paul Ryan seems to bring the real Romney… warm, funny and friendly, out in Mitt that all Romney’s friends and associates talk about.

The challenge for Romney will be to introduce Ryan to the broader American electorate. While well known in Washington and among conservatives, most voters are not familiar with him.

The vice presidential selection will now dominate headlines after Romney’s team has been teasing the announcement for weeks, but nobody expected it today… on a Saturday and before the end of the Olympics.  A Romney-Ryan ticket is exactly what America needs to lead us out of the disastrous straits we are now in.  And everyone, including seniors, will have to tighten their belts a bit to save our country for future generations… for our kids and grandkids.  Romney-Ryan are just the guys to turn things around; the right team for the times!

And now that the VP choice is made, Romney will head out on a 4-day swing state bus trip after which the rest of the speaking slots for the convention in Tampa should be announced… and then it will be game on!  There could not be a more stark difference between the two sides and choice on November 6th!

If I wake up in a few hours and Ryan was not the pick… we were all fooled!

h/t to Reuters 

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Hopefully Shades of the Future Verses the Past for Jobs, States’ Rights and America

Jan Brewer with Romney in Colorado to talk about jobs - Future

Remember Jan Brewer with Obama – Present/Past

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Scott Brown's Shot Heard 'Round the World: What If?

Political pundits are running out of superlatives to describe the fallout President Barack Obama faces if Republican Scott Brown captures the Senate seat that the late liberal lion Ted Kennedy held for more than four decades, in a state with a 3-to-1 Democratic voter registration advantage.

Although the Democratic get-out-the-vote machine and heavy snowfalls in Brown strongholds have left the outcome very much in doubt, the most recent polls show a powerful surge favoring the GOP challenger.

Anti-Obamacare sentiment in the Bay State, as well as a series of damaging gaffes by Brown's opponent, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, have propelled him into the lead by double digits, according to some polls.

Obama aides reportedly hvae begun to advise Democratic leaders privately that they consider the race a lost cause.

Already, analysts are beginning to assess the political fallout from what Suffolk University pollster David Paleologos predicts will be a political "shot heard 'round the world." But in some ways, the impact is difficult to gauge, simply because the scope of the turnabout in Massachusetts is almost unprecedented.

A Coakley defeat despite Obama's heavy personal investment in the race might constitute the biggest upset in modern political history, some political pundits say. Obama taped robocalls, made a campaign appearance, blasted his e-mail list, and is appearing in a last-minute Coakley ad that is blanketing Massachusetts airwaves – all perhaps to no avail.

It is a stunning reversal, given that polls showed Coakley coasting along with a 30-point lead only a few months ago.

Here are the sea changes to expect in the immediate future if Brown wins, according to a wide range of experts and analysts:

Beware the Spinmeisters
The first reverberation, political experts say, will be massive media coverage and a full-court press by the Obama administration and Democrats to spin the upset to their advantage – as difficult as that may be.

Look for the administration to send out surrogates who will say the people have spoken and the administration has heard their message. The administration will go back to the political drawing board, they'll say, while pointing out that Democrats still have strong majorities in Congress.

"We're told that the president is going to come back fighting," Politico's Mike Allen said Tuesday on MSNBC's “Morning Joe” program. "We're going to hear the president with much more tough, populist language. We heard him out there saying, 'We're going to get our money back from the banks.' We heard him say Sunday at that [Coakley] rally, 'The bankers don't need another senator in Washington.'

"And so even though they'll have to accept smaller victories, you're going to hear the president in a fighting mood trying to say, 'Look, I said change was going to be hard. Whoa! Change was harder than I thought,'" Allen said.

Obamacare in the Balance

A lot of attention has focused on whether the president's healthcare reforms, which both houses of Congress are revising, will be a casualty if Brown wins and the GOP gains its 41st vote in the Senate – enough to mount a filibuster.

Of course, Democrats are working on a "plan B" in case Coakley loses. But while there are certainly parliamentary avenues available by which healthcare reform still could be enacted, skittish Democrats up for re-election may find those options politically unpalatable.

With public opposition to Obamacare continuing to rise, at some point the question becomes how much damage Democrats are willing to sustain.

New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote that ramming healthcare reform through after a Coakley defeat would be "political suicide."

"It would be the act of a party so arrogant, elitist and contemptuous of popular wisdom that it would not deserve to govern," he writes. "Marie Antoinette would applaud, but voters would rage."
Even firebrand New York Democrat Anthony Weiner said on "Morning Joe" Tuesday that “I think you can make a pretty good argument that healthcare might be dead” if Coakley loses.

There will be fierce liberal arguments to proceed at any cost, however.

Facing voters in the midterm elections without having acted on the president's primary policy initiative would be a formula for disaster at the polls, they'll say.

Obama's Big Agenda

Election years are known mostly as legislative wastelands – no one wants to pass a big-ticket item that an opponent could use against him a few months later. After Democrats shake off the effects of the Brown haymaker, look for that to be even more the case.

Although Congress will still be under pressure to pass measures that promise to boost employment and revive the economy, much of the administration's transformative agenda will be put on the shelf. Energy cap-and-trade legislation was already a non-starter in the Senate, and it would certainly remain so. Chances of passing immigration reform that includes some indirect form of amnesty for illegal aliens would be remote indeed.

"It’s hard to see how the more controversial parts of Obama’s agenda get passed now, at least after healthcare reform, which Democrats can ram through in various ways, quickly, if they want," Larry Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, told Newsmax. "I would bet many Democrats would say they’ve given enough blood at the office. Now they’ll spend their energy trying to find a way to get re-elected."

And as the Brown-Coakley race demonstrates, that won't be easy for Democrats to do. But look for Obama to continue to cater to his left-leaning political base; in the aftermath of Coakley-Brown, that may be all he's got left.

It would be too extreme to say the shocking setback in Massachusetts would transform Obama into lame-duck status. But given the legislative gridlock he can expect anyway in an election year, the remainder of his term could prove to be a very difficult battle indeed.

A 'Plan B' for Everything

David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, says a Coakley-Obama defeat will "totally change how the administration approaches the next nine months."
Democrats are looking furiously for "Plan B" on healthcare reform if the political balance shifts in the Senate. But Paleologos says the administration's legislative strategies will all have to change.

"That's tells me strategically they're going to have to have a fallback for every other issue," Paleologos told Newsmax, "and to work on anyone that's borderline in the Senate.

"And in fact it might bind the administration's hands, which isn't going to help at the polls, especially if the recession doesn't sort of bottom out, and people [don't] begin to feel that we're turning around."

What remains to be seen, however, is whether Team Obama can be flexible enough ideologically to follow the course of former President Bill Clinton, who responded to his midterm defeat by moving to the center politically.

Brickbats From the Left

As much as the president faces criticism from the right, a defeat in Massachusetts will evoke howls of protests from prominent figures on the left.

Expect MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann, and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, to lead the charge. Although liberal enclaves may circle the wagons initially. they also will complain that the reason for the president's sagging fortunes is that he hasn't gone leftward enough.

Obama needs to return to his core values, they will say, ignore the growing cries for fiscal restraint, and propose more big-government programs to jump start the flagging economy. Sometimes, it seems, failure isn't an orphan after all.

Rediscovering Bipartisanship

The president came into office promising to nurture bipartisanship but felt he really didn't have to work with Republicans because his party enjoyed a supermajority.

The latest example of the administration's hubris: locking Republicans out of the Obamacare negotiations, and allowing C-SPAN to televise the weeks-long proceedings for only a single hour.

If Obama hopes to make any progress in Congress, he'll have to scale back his ambitions and get at least some Republicans to sign on to his proposals. Look for him to soften the barrage of anti-Bush rhetoric.

So the irony of a Republican win in Massachusetts today is that it could encourage the president to begin to deliver on his campaign pledge for a new style of politics.

"They will need to fulfill the promise of bipartisanship, because it's now the reality," Paleologos told Newsmax. "With the numbers potentially being 59 to 41, that changes so much of the methodology of doing the work in Congress. And that's going to have a significant impact."

No More Mystique

Remember how international leaders jostled to have their picture taken with the new president after the inauguration? Hollywood stars tried to cadge a visit to the White House, and his choice of a family pet became a front-page news story?

Well, if all the president's men and a bevy of attack ads couldn't save Coakley from a bitter loss, the Obama honeymoon is arguably over once and for all. Post-Coakley, he may find he's no longer the darling he once was on Capitol Hill, let alone a celebrity when he meets the leaders of other countries.

"If Brown wins, Obama will have spent a huge amount of political capital and cache for naught," Boston University professor and political analyst Tobe Berkovitz told Newsmax. "This will have a huge impact on the president's ability to fly in and out for campaign appearances for democrats at the start of the 2010 election.

"He's used up several political lives stumping for candidates in 2009 and 2010 and promoting his policies for economic recovery, the war against terrorism, and most significantly healthcare reform," Berkovitz said. "A loss of the 'Kennedy seat' would be a huge repudiation of the Obama and Democratic agenda. This might not prove insurmountable in the long run, but will place the president and the democrats in a massive tailspin into the spring.

Presidential promises to leverage his popularity on behalf of candidates who support his agenda will ring hollow, Berkovitz said. The president remains personally popular with voters, but that status may now be at risk. In fact, don't be surprised if Democrats from conservative districts begin to distance themselves from a president whose popularity appears to be on the wane.

"The 41-59 party split [in the Senate] will be the least of Obama's problems. He and the democratic leadership will be battling with incumbents up for reelection who will be watching their political careers evaporate, as they march in and out of votes forced by the House and Senate leadership," Berkovitz said.

Congressional Fallout

One of the problems facing White House political strategists has been a rash of Democratic retirements in Congress. Parker Griffith, the erstwhile Democrat from Alabama, even switched parties to avoid the expected midterm bloodbath bearing down on incumbents.
People shouldn't be surprised if even more Democrats opt out of running in November, in the wake of Brown-Coakley, Sabato said.

"Obama was unable to help his candidate in a state [Massachusetts] he carried with 62 percent. He didn’t help Jon Corzine last fall even though he won New Jersey by about a 15 percent [margin]. So you have to wonder where he can make a difference for Democrats in the midterm elections.

"This has got to scare the bejesus out of Democrats everywhere," Sabato told Newsmax. "If Brown can win in Massachusetts, the second-most Democratic state, then what must Democrats who represent Republican states be thinking? It’s possible this will nudge a few more Democrats to retire from Congress."

Republican Gains

As the national political momentum swings away from Democrats, much of it will swing over to Republicans. The bombshell that a GOP win in Massachusetts would represent would bring with it a whole host of benefits for the party of Lincoln and Reagan.

"The national Republican brand will no longer be toxic," commentator and GOP strategist Roger Stone told Newsmax. "Look for party-switchers – moderate and conservative Democrats who switch and jump into statewide races."

Already the party is enjoying a resurgence of enthusiasm from its base, now that the party faithful see that the "Obama miracle" appears astoundingly short lived.

Along with that will come money – lots of it. It is a sad reality of U.S. politics that special-interest lobbyists read the political tea leaves to determine which party's fortunes are on the rise, and then contribute money accordingly in order to buy influence.

Pundits say it was no accident Obama attracted record-breaking donations in his presidential campaign – once the economy tanked in September 2009, it didn't take Svengali to figure out which candidate was likely to win.

Now, the flow of dollars will begin to reverse, meaning GOP candidates will be much better off than in recent elections.

There's another important political impact felt as the pendulum swings to the right: GOP leaders will find it much easier to attract top-drawer candidates willing to toss their hats in the political ring and run for office.

Depending on the district, however, Democrats who step forward to run could be accused of having a death wish.

More Tea

One of the big winners in Massachusetts: the tea party movement. Although tea party leaders kept a low profile in Massachusetts to avoid alienating die-hard Democrats, they poured in resources to help Brown mount his bid to come from behind. An upset victory by a candidate whose No. 1 issue was fiscal restraint can only bolster the tea party faithful.

"The tea party movement, named for a Boston event, will grow as a vehicle for reform," Stone predicted.

Demise of a Media Lovefest

During Obama's first year in office, he basked in positive press the likes of which arguably no previous president had experienced. But with his job-approval numbers in a free-fall – and likely to take even more of a hit in the weeks to come as the media runs postmortems ad nauseam on why he couldn't save Coakley from defeat – Obama will face much tougher questioning.

If Coakley loses, the media universe that will be forced to recognize what the rest of the nation realized a long time ago: The president isn't the ratings magic that the media once thought he was.

The biggest change if Brown wins may be an altered perception that Obama represents a new era in politics. In precisely one year's time, the hope and change promised by his move into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. will be sucked into the Beltway swamp, possibly forever.

All of which raises another question: Can Republican leaders reverse their well-earned reputation for not being able to handle success?
"The Republicans have the ability to make a sow's ear out of the political silk purse that might be handed to them by the voters in Massachusetts," Berkovitz told Newsmax. "Just as the Democrats misread the election of President Obama as a possible realignment rather than a repudiation of the Bush administration.

"The Republicans should place themselves on hubris alert," he said. "The possible win in Massachusetts should be seen as much as a 'throw the bums out' vote as 'vote the Republicans in.'"

By: David A. Patten

Source: Newsmax