Romney Goes Deep With Ryan
John Nance Garner
(D-Texas) was the last member of the House of Representatives, nominated as a
Vice President, who was on a winning ticket.
It was the 1932 election and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was his
President. Garner is probably best known
as describing the Vice Presidency as, “…not worth a bucket of warm spit [No,
“spit” is not the word he used].” Paul
Ryan (R-Wisconsin), will be the next Representative, nominated as Vice
President, on a winning ticket. Paul
Ryan will be a much better Vice President than Garner; but then, Mitt Romney
will be a much better President as well.
In selecting Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney
has gone deep. He chose not a boutique
choice, nor a main-stream choice, certainly not a, “flavor of the month” choice
but a strong, smart, savvy man, with a degree in economics, who knows what this
campaign is really about. Some people
will say that Ryan is not a, “safe” choice.
I disagree. Paul Ryan is superbly
capable of understanding, articulating and acting on the needs of this
precarious economy. He will be good for
the country and that makes him a safe choice.
“Safe” should mean safe for the country, not safe for the theater of
political manipulation.
This election is not just about
recovering our economic legs; it is about confirming our commitment to
individual effort, the free market economy and reward commensurate with
worth. We are not, as some people
zealously maintain, battling good and evil.
Those lines would be far too easy to see and understand. We are battling two disparate views of what
constitutes good economics and good government.
Unfortunately, when people see the free market as a tool of inequality
instead of a tool of just reward we start down the ugly path toward Portugal ’s
problems. When our President sincerely
believes that the federal, state and local governments are the font of all
success (“You didn’t build that…”) then we are on the road toward Italy ’s
problems. When public service unions
(teachers, fire, police, postal workers, et. al.) feel that tax payers should
fund their salaries and benefits with no accountability to performance or
economic realities we are on the way toward Greece ’s problems. When we feel that there should be no risk, no
reward, no innovation, no individual effort, just the homogenized sops of an
all powerful government doling out enough bread and circus to keep us all
happy, then we are on the way toward Spain ’s economy. Each of these countries (the so-called PIGS
countries) shares our European heritage.
They share our cultural, religious and social background. And each one of them is an economically
failed democracy.
Here is the lesson for us all. Here
is the strength of Mitt Romney’s choice in his running mate. Here is what we need to know about this team
of Romney/Ryan. They see the problems,
and they have viable answers. They are
not afraid of the economic truth, because they know that solutions are
available.
In a quote from Sunday’s Washington Post, Paul Ryan says, “The
commitment Mitt Romney and I make to you is this: We won’t duck the tough
issues; we will lead… We won’t blame
others; we will take responsibility. And we won’t replace our founding
principles; we will reapply them.”
I would like to emphasize the most
important part of that quote, “…we won’t replace our founding principles; we
will reapply
them.”
Reaffirm your belief in American
free enterprise, and keep the faith.
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