The race for the Presidency has shaped up to be a game of chicken that just shifted into high gear. And I like it.
President Obama’s re-election campaign has been gearing up for a run against Mitt Romney for over a year now, and not just because Romney was the most likely Republican nominee. It has long been conjectured that the Obama campaign was counting on Republicans giving them the rich bogey man who would best fit their class warfare strategy.
And the GOP primary voters did exactly that. Not the torrid reprimands from Newt Gingrich, nor the poetic sermonizing from Herman Cain; No constitutional virtuousness from Ron Paul, and no cowboy swagger from Rick Perry. Just a highly successful, 65-year-old male with an ideal resume, perfect family, perfect hair and perfect teeth.
While pounding him for the transgression of being a self-made millionaire, the Obama campaign had been reportedly hoping that Mitt Romney would select Paul Ryan as his running mate. The Democrats have been building a case against Congressman Ryan since May of 2011 when the Agenda Project came out with its famous Granny Off The Cliff ad. This over-the-top video shows a Paul Ryan look-alike forcefully emptying Grandma out of her wheelchair and into the Potomac from high atop a rocky ridge.
As Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan has established himself as the pragmatic thought leader for addressing Washington’s insane deficit practices. He is best known for having submitted the most comprehensive federal budget in many years. It lays out a recovery plan that gradually migrates unstable programs like Medicare and Social Security from socialism to the sustainable natural laws of capitalism. The details of the Ryan budget will provide attack points for the Obama campaign, including the Medicare proposal that sparked the Granny Off The Cliff tactic.
The Obama racing team began revving their engines minutes after Governor Romney introduced his new running mate. Their press release read, “Paul Ryan is best known as the author of a budget so radical, The New York Times called it ‘the most extreme budget plan passed by a House of Congress in modern times.’ With Mitt Romney's support, he'd end Medicare as we know it and slash the investments we need to keep our economy growing—all while cutting taxes for those at the very top.” Utterly predictable. They must have written that line months ago.
