House of Eratosthenes

Well a few hours before, I had some errands to run and so I was listening to another speech, by Rush Limbaugh. Rush, in turn, was making a reference to Chris Christie’s speech:

Those people — the undecideds, the swing voters, the independents, whatever you want to call ’em — are the target. And it’s clear. It is clear. We suspected this and we got confirmation of it the day before the convention, and people told me I was wrong, that they didn’t really say that.

But it’s clear that this convention is not going to criticize Obama. This convention so far. Now there’s still two nights to go. But last night there was not a recitation of Obama’s record. There was not one effort. I’m gonna tell you: I had high hopes when Christie started with his “what we believe and what they believe” stuff. I had really high hopes for that. I thought, “Okay, now we’re gonna get into telling the country that’s watching this who the Democrats are; what their policies are.”

We didn’t do that. And the prevailing reason is, “Well, everybody knows, so we don’t need to say that.” Let’s go to the audio sound bites and start here at number seven. This is Ed Rollins this morning on America’s Newsroom on Fox. Bill Hemmer said, “Ann Romney didn’t mention Obama by name; Chris Christie didn’t mention him by name. He just said ‘the president’ one time.”

ROLLINS: Not hitting on Obama was a perfect way to go. We all know the Obama record and don’t need to have it reinforced.

RUSH: “Perfect way to go,” not to mention Obama. “Not hitting on Obama was a perfect way to go.” Clearly what we’ve known for years is true. The Republican hierarchy, from its consultants on down, truly believes that mentioning Obama by name and then criticizing will cause these swing voters that Luntz had that I told you about to run straight back to the Democrats. It is clear they believe it.

Naturally, I profoundly disagree.

But I think also it’s obvious that these people don’t see this as a turning point election. They see it as just another one in the cycle. Here’s Joe Trippi. Joe Trippi is a Democrat consultant. Trippi ran Howard Dean’s ill-fated campaign in 2004 when John Kerry (who served in Vietnam, by the way) ended up being the nominee. He was also on the Fox show this morning. After Ed Rollins said, “Yep, yep! Not hitting Obama was the perfect way to go,” Joe Trippi said…

TRIPPI: Christie last night, there’s been some disappointment he didn’t go after Obama enough. But what he did was talk to the undecideds out there. If he had pounded on Obama in that way, I think it woulda turned those people off.

RUSH: Folks, I’m literally going insane hearing this. I want to know why these independents don’t get turned off when Obama calls Romney a murderer and a felon. Why is it that independents only get turned off? Why is it that our guys are agreeing with a Democrat consultant? Why is it that the independents only get turned off when we’re critical? And we’re not even being “critical” when we tell the truth!

And I thought that’s what Christie’s speech was about. “Tell the truth! We’re gonna tell the American people hard truths.” We didn’t tell the people hard truths about Obama. We’re not telling people the hard truths about where this country is headed. We’re afraid if we do that, that the independents won’t want to hear that, and they’ll go running back to Obama. And yet Christie said in his speech, “They can handle the truth. They want the truth.

“The American people, they’ll gut it up every time when they know the stakes, just like the Greatest Generation, or World War II generation.” Well, somehow what Christie believes hasn’t been adopted by the rest of the party, because we’re afraid of telling the American people the truth about Obama. You’re hearing the Republican consultants say it. It’s good not to do that! Why, it’s gonna send these independents running back to Obama. But they never run from Obama when Obama calls us murderers.

The independents don’t get upset when the hear this media guy, David Chalian of Yahoo say, “Oh, yeah, Republicans, Romney? They love having a party when black people are drowning and brown people are drowning in New Orleans!” No, independents don’t mind that. You notice how the Democrats don’t have one ounce of these fears that we have? Yes, I know the reason; I know the answer. It’s all psychological. We’re buying a bill of goods, and we have for a long time.

It’s a good question, “why these independents don’t get turned off” when democrats lash out with their venom. I think the answer is that this has to do with the way a left-wing regime works: “First order of business is we have to stop all this fighting and all this conflict, so everybody just do what we say.” And people are generally obedient and amenable to demands. The more progress the left makes, the easier it becomes for them to make further progress from then on, for as the political landscape changes more toward something hospitable to their efforts, independent thinking erodes. This way of thinking takes hold, and then grows, and it says that the measure of a man is how eager he is to take orders.

I think that’s the problem with these so-called independents. I thought Rush said something about how democrats can actually kill a woman and then claim the Republicans have declared a “war on women,” referencing Chappaquiddick.

I’m looking forward to his next show in another four hours. To see what he has to say about the next Vice President’s speech:

President Barack Obama, came to office during an economic crisis, as he has reminded us a time or two. Those are very tough days. And any fair measure of his record has to take that into account. My own 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 G.M. 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 100 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 where the recovery that was promised is no where in sight. Right now, 23 million men and women are struggling to find work. 23 million people unemployed or underemployed. Nearly one in six Americans is in poverty. Millions of young Americans have graduated from college during the Obama presidency, ready to use their gifts and get moving in life.

Half of them can’t find the work they studied for, or any work at all. So here’s the question, without a change in leadership, why would the next four years be any different from the last four years?

(APPLAUSE)

The first troubling sign came with the stimulus. President Obama’s first and best shot at fixing the economy. At a time when he got everything he wanted under one party rule. It cost $831 billion. The largest one-time expenditure ever by our federal government.

It went to companies like Solyndra, with their gold-plated connections, subsidized jobs and make believe markets.

The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare anachronism at their worst.

(APPLAUSE)

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.

(APPLAUSE)

Maybe the greatest waste of all, was time. Here we were faced with a massive job crisis so deep that if everyone out of work stood in single file, that unemployment line would stretch the length of the entire American continent.

You would think that any president, whatever his party, would make job creation and nothing else his first order of economic business, but this president didn’t do that. Instead, we got a long, divisive, all or nothing attempt to put the federal government in charge of health care.

(CROWD BOOS)

Obama Care comes to more than 2,000 pages of rules, mandates, taxes, fees and fines that have no place in a free country.

(APPLAUSE)

That’s right. That’s right.

You know what? The president has declared that the debate over government controlled health care is over. That will come as news to the millions of American who will elect Mitt Romney so we can repeal Obama Care.

(APPLAUSE)

And the biggest, coldest power play of all in Obama Care came at the expense of the elderly. You see, even with all the hidden taxes to pay for the health care takeover, even with the new law and new taxes on nearly a million small businesses, the planners in Washington still didn’t have enough money; they needed more. They needed hundreds of billions more. So they just took it all away from Medicare, $716 billion funneled out of Medicare by President Obama.

(CROWD BOOS)

An obligation we have to our parents and grandparents is being sacrificed, all to pay for a new entitlement we didn’t even ask for.

(APPLAUSE)

The greatest threat to Medicare is Obama Care and we’re going to stop it.

(APPLAUSE)

In Congress, when they take out the heavy books and the wall charts about Medicare, my thoughts go back to a house on Garfield Street in Janesville. My wonderful grandma, Janet, had Alzheimer’s and she moved in with mom and me. Though she felt lost at times, we did all the little things that made her feel loved. We had help from Medicare and it was there, just like it’s there for my mom today. Medicare is a promise and we will honor it. A Romney-Ryan Administration with protect and strengthen Medicare for my mom’s generation, for my generation and for my kids and yours.

(APPLAUSE)

So our opponents can consider themselves on notice. In this election, on this issue , the usual posturing on the Left isn’t going to work. Mitt Romney and I know the difference between protecting a program and raiding it. Ladies and gentlemen, our nation needs this debate, we want this debate, we will win in this debate.

(APPLAUSE)

Obamacare, as much as anything else, explains why a presidency that began with such anticipation now comes to such a disappointing close. It began with a financial crisis. It ends with a job crisis. It began with a housing crisis they alone didn’t cause. It ends with a housing crisis they didn’t correct.

(APPLAUSE)

It began with a perfect AAA credit rating for the United States. It ends with the downgraded America . It all started off with stirring speeches, Greek columns, the thrill of something new. Now all that’s left is a presidency adrift, surviving on slogans that already seem tired., grasping at the moment that has already passed, like a ship trying to sail on yesterday’s wind.

(APPLAUSE)

You know, President Obama was asked not long ago to reflect on any mistakes he might have made. He said, “Well, I haven’t communicated enough.”

(LAUGHTER)

He said his job is to, quote, “tell a story to the American people”. As if that is the whole problem here? He needs to talk more and we need to be better listeners?

(LAUGHTER)

Ladies and gentlemen, these past four years, we have suffered no shortage of words in the White House.

(APPLAUSE)

What is missing is leadership in the White House.

(APPLAUSE)

And the story that Barack Obama does tell, forever shifting blame to the last administration, is getting old. The man assumed office almost four years ago. Isn’t it about time he assumed responsibility?

(APPLAUSE)

In this generation, a defining responsibility of government is to steer our nation clear of a debt crisis while there is still time. Back in 2008, candidate Obama called a $10 trillion national debt unpatriotic. Serious talk from what looked like a serious reformer. By his own decisions, President Obama has added more debt than any other president before him.

And more than all the troubled governments of Europe combined. One president, one term, $5 trillion in new debt.

He created a new bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanks them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.

AUDIENCE: Boo.

RYAN: Republicans stepped up with good-faith reforms and solutions equal to the problems. How did the president respond? By doing nothing — nothing except to dodge and demagogue the issue.

So here we are, $16 trillion in debt and still he does nothing. In Europe, massive debts have put entire governments at risk of collapse, and still he does nothing. And all we have heard from this president and his team are attacks on anyone who dares to point out the obvious.

They have no answer to this simple reality: We need to stop spending money we don’t have.

(APPLAUSE)

Very simple. Not that hard.

And then…the zing.

President Obama is the kind of politician who puts promises on the record, and then calls that the record.

(LAUGHTER)

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.

I wonder if it was planned from the very beginning to leave Obama’s name unmentioned until the middle of the week? Or is someone listening to Rush, and typing really fast?

I thought Ryan’s speech was great in content and masterfully delivered. I joked with my wife that the left would be squawking about how racist the speech was and she kicked me. I went over to PMSNBC and lo and behold, Tingles was on a raaaaacist rampage. My wife was dumbfounded and asked me how I knew; my wife is mostly apolitical conservative gal. I responded like this:

“Remember back in 2004 when I told you that if Bush beat Kerry that Katie Couric would wear black? And you called me at work laughing because she actually DID wear black? It’s because I understand those people. Fortunately, they simply cannot fathom how my mind works.”

Here’s what I want to see, in order:

1) A slowly increasing Romney/Ryan lead in the polls, especially in the swing states over the next few days
2) Increasing anger and bitterness from Barry and his ilk as the realization that they could lose starts to sink in
3) A crappy, angry Democrat convention
4) Ass kickings in the debates. They won’t be reported that way, but people will see know what they see

and most of all

5) I want on air emotional breakdowns on all of the major networks on election night, complete with pants shitting, seizures and fetal ball thumb-sucking

I’ve got to admit that #5 appeals to me the most.
- Physics Geek | 08/30/2012 @ 09:28
I’ve got to admit that #5 appeals to me the most.

Me, too. I still recall frickin’ Wolf Blitzer’s pained expression as it dawned on him that Kerry was goin’ to lose. One of CNN’s all-time greatest moments, IMHO.
- bpenni | 08/30/2012 @ 10:58
I wish I could understand the mindset that talks about “the war on women” and yet calls Republican women the most vile names imaginable. (And yeah, I remember how Sarah Palin somehow was also not a woman because she is a Republican.) It’s the same cynical mindset that is now attacking Scott Walker for daring to show emotion at the convention. It’s certainly despicable to love your country or state. Democrats in this country have gone so far off center that it’s hard even for us ex-Democrats to be able to fathom how they think. It’s time for the grownups to take charge again and I think that’s what this election is about. We don’t elect a savior, a celebrity, or even sometimes the best candidate for president. But we damn well better elect a leader and that’s something we failed to do in 2008.
- teripittman | 08/30/2012 @ 11:44
“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.”

College graduates should not be enabled to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering why they should have to move out and get on with life.
- CaptDMO | 09/01/2012 @ 06:52
That’s a good point.

Drawing from a metaphor of a momma bird kicking the baby out of the nest, we seem to have enacted a massive co-dependent “program” to build guardrails around the edges of said nests. And then to go ’round the base of the tree picking up the baby birds that somehow managed to slip past, hoist them up the tree & put ’em back.

And then, of course, getting the word out to all the birds who did manage to learn to fly, that they’re not really doing it and they should stop.
- mkfreeberg | 09/01/2012 @ 07:06

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Paul Ryan’s SpeechThursday, August 30th, 2012

Paul Ryan’s Speech
Thursday, August 30th, 2012