Mitt Romney: Obama Will 'Do Anything' to Get Elected

I hope he keeps hammering O as he's been the last few days. I've been tweeting Team Romney with my concerns, so who knows, maybe I'm getting through. I know someone got through to Mitt over the last week or so. That Chillicothe speech was a knock out.

Mitt Romney Campaigns in Chillicothe, Ohio

I don't see the full video anywhere, but below's a highlight clip from the haters at Daily Kos.

And see The Hill, "Romney slams Obama in tough new speech" (via Memeorandum):

Mitt Romney used a tough new campaign speech to personally blast the Obama campaign on Tuesday, saying comments earlier in the day from Vice President Biden are "what an angry and desperate Presidency looks like."

"Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago," Romney said while campaigning in Ohio.

Romney was responding to Biden's suggestion that the GOP ticket's economic policies would “put y’all back in chains."

The vice president made the remark while campaigning in Virginia, during a discussion of Wall Street regulation.

"They’ve said it. Every Republican’s voted for it. Look at what they value and look at their budget and what they’re proposing. Romney wants to let the — he said in the first 100 days, he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules — unchain Wall Street," Biden said. "They’re going to put y’all back in chains. He’s said he’s going to do nothing about stopping the practice of outsourcing."

Romney repeatedly and harshly criticized Team Obama for the remarks.

The New York Times is also calling it a tough speech, "Romney Delivers a Harsh Rebuke of Obama at Final Stop on Bus Tour":

CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — Hours after the vice president said that the Republican presidential ticket wanted to put Americans “back in chains,” Mitt Romney concluded a four-day bus tour with his harshest rebuke of the Obama administration to date, saying that its negative campaign tactics have “disgraced the presidency.”

In a speech that was striking in its stinging sweep, which aides said was animated by personal frustration with the recent tone of the race, Mr. Romney lashed out at attacks that he called “wild and reckless.”

“His campaign strategy is to smash America apart and then cobble together 51 percent of the pieces,” Mr. Romney said. “If an American president wins that way, we all lose.”

The latest offense, Mr. Romney said, came on Tuesday, when Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. delivered a speech in Iowa. Mr. Biden mocked Mr. Romney for seeking to undo regulations on big banks. “Unchain Wall Street,” the vice president said. “They’re going to put y’all back in chains.” Later, an Obama aide said the White House stood by those provocative words.

Continue reading.

Plus, Robert Stacy McCain was on the ground, "THE CHILLICOTHE ADDRESS: Romney’s Best Speech of the Campaign":

REYNOLDSBURG, Ohio — Folks, Mitt Romney’s event tonight in Chillicothe was the best I’ve seen of this campaign. The crowd was huge — estimated between 5,000 and 6,000 — and the setting was awesome: In front of the beautiful courthouse downtown, with the sun just setting behind the courthouse and the sky glowing golden.

The speech itself was awesome. I’d already heard Mitt speak twice earlier today — first at a coal mine in Beallsville and then in downtown Zanesville — and parts of the speech were already familiar. But I noticed Mitt was reading from a teleprompter at the Chillicothe event, so this particular speech was prepared in advance. But given the content, including references to the “wild and reckless accusations . . . a few hours ago in Virginia,” it was obvious that it had been updated quite recently.

At several points, Mitt was interrupted by cheers and applause, and at times the crowd broke into chants of “Mitt! Mitt! Mitt!” or “USA! USA! USA!” The candidate was fired up and the crowd was fired up, and it was very exciting to be there with my 13-year-old son Jefferson. Afterwards, as we left, I talked briefly to a National Correspondent Whose Name You Would Recognize and said, “Great speech, huh?” The correspondent replied: “He wrote it himself, you know.” My reaction was skeptical. Does any big-time politician write his own speeches anymore? I said, “Really? He wrote it himself?”

The correspondent said, “Swear to God. He wrote it himself” — and then did a cross-my-heart motion.

How would the correspondent know Mitt wrote the speech himself? I don’t know, but his confidence was such — and the speech was so genuinely awesome — that I called my source at Romney campaign HQ in Boston and asked him if he he had a text of the speech he could send me. It just arrived by e-mail and so here, ladies and gentlmen, is what I call The Chillicothe Address...

Read the full speech at the link.

More at The Lonely Conservative, "Romney to Obama: “Take Your Campaign of Division and Anger and Hate Back to Chicago”." And at Weasel Zippers, "Chutzpah: Obama Campaign Accuses Romney of Being “Unhinged”…"

I'll be updating this post with some of my earlier commentary on Romney's rapid response efforts. This is good, but Eric Fehrnstrom, Andrea Saul and the others can't continue falling down on the job.

Paul Ryan Interview With Brit Hume on Fox News

Here's the video clip, at Fox, "Paul Ryan on Medicare, budget plan, relationship with Romney." If you're pressed for time, Ryan discusses Medicare, quite effectively, at about 10:00 minutes.

And FWIW, check the related piece from yesterday's Los Angeles Times, "A closer look at Paul Ryan's federal budget plan."

Republican Political Professionals 'Fret Over' Paul Ryan

I didn't read this Politico hit piece yesterday, at Memeorandum, "GOP pros fret over Paul Ryan."

Romney's Ryan pick is so bold and significant I almost laughed at the headline.

So now it turns out that the editors at the Wall Street Journal were irked enough to write about it. See, "The Bedwetter Caucus: GOP 'pros' trash the Republican ticket."

BONUS: Bryan Preston at PJ Media hammers Politco's "Frummish" report, "Attack of the Raging Professional Moderates!"

Mitt Romney 'Has Not Launched the Type of Aggressive Messaging and Counter Offensive Necessary to Beat the Campaign of a Saul Alinsky Acolyte'

From Laura Ingrahm on the O'Reilly Factor last Friday, the day Team Romney announced Paul Ryan's veep selection. Hey, it's been pretty awesome since then, but with the exception of the grassroots enthusiasm for Ryan, I'm not seeing the kind of really hard punch back we should be seeing. I'm personally enthusiastic, but still waiting for #RomneyRyan to get Obama on the ropes, to hammer him until he's staggering.

Here's Ingraham, "Laura Ingraham: What Mitt Romney has to do to turn his campaign around":

Now, I realize that some of you won't like hearing this, but if the election were held today, Romney would probably lose. Two surveys released within hours of each other by CNN and Fox reported Obama up by seven points and nine points respectively.

The swing state story is not a good one either. The real Clear Politics average has Obama up seven in Pennsylvania, five in Ohio, and three in Virginia. Obama leads by slim margins in Florida and Colorado.

So with unemployment still above eight percent and two-thirds of the country thinking that we're going in the wrong direction, how on earth is Obama still ahead? Is every poll other than Rasmussen flawed or biased? First reason, negative ads and Romney brand management.

Just about every week this summer, Democrats have launched a new attack against Romney. And by August, they've stereotyped him as a tax dodging, cancer causing, outsourcing, 1950s aristocrat with a car elevator. Romney has spent a lot of time raising money which is important and he's done that well. But he has not launched the type of aggressive messaging and counter offensive that is necessary to beat the campaign of a Saul Alinsky acolyte.

The Obama team throws a knife and Romney's team tosses a pillow. An effective rapid response team would have nailed Obama on the Super PAC cancer ad. I would have said something like this, we're all getting sick, sick of this poisonous style of campaigning and sick of politicians like President Obama who blame others for their broken promises and failed policies. Instead, Romney's spokeswoman responded by lauding universal healthcare in Massachusetts. Terrible...

Watch it at the link.

See also Politico, "Laura Ingraham: 'Romney's losing'."

PREVIOUSLY: See also my earlier concerns, "Mitt Romney Sought 'Pact' With Obama to Take 'Business or Family or Taxes' Off the Table."

'Put an Obama Bumper Sticker on Your Head When You Do This...'

Ed Morrissey has it, at Hot Air, "Video: Soledad O’Brien’s membership in Mantra Club confirmed."

PREVIOUSLY: "CNN's Soledad O'Brien Cribs 'Talking Points Memo' in Feeble Attack on Paul Ryan's Medicare Plan."

"CNN's independent analysis" means "Talking Points Memo."

Barack Obama, Stephanie Cutter Double Down on Joe Biden's Disgusting 'Back in Chains' Slur

Twitchy reports, "Gaffetastic new tone! Biden in Va.: ‘They’re going to put you back in chains,’ ‘We can win NC again’," and "How low can they go? Obama agrees with Biden’s ‘they’re going to put you back in chains’ comment."

And Obama spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter is down with it as well, "Biden’s ‘Back in Chains’ Remark Draws Fire":

Mr. Obama’s deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, told MSNBC that the campaign doesn’t have a problem with Mr. Biden’s comments because he was using them as a metaphor for the consequences of rolling back Wall Street reform.

“The bottom line is that we have no problem with those comments,” Ms. Cutter said.

Mr. Biden has a history of statement and gaffes that have made headlines. In fact, in the same speech Tuesday, Mr. Biden told the Virginia voters: “With you — and I mean this — with you, we can win North Carolina again.”

More at The Hill and Memeorandum.

Democrats Demagogue Paul Ryan's Medicare Plan

From the DNC Chair on down, the Democrats are lying, and spinning, and demonizing Paul Ryan's Medicare proposals.

This CNN report below is pretty fair, and here's the front page report at today's New York Times, "Medicare Rises as Prime Election Issue":

TAMPA, Fla. — With Mitt Romney’s selection of Representative Paul D. Ryan as his running mate, Florida quickly emerged on Monday as a critical test of the nationwide Republican gamble that concerns over the mounting federal debt can blunt potent Democratic attacks on conservative proposals to revamp Medicare.

As Mr. Romney campaigned through Florida on Monday, Democrats greeted him with a barrage of assaults, including a Web advertisement featuring worried elderly voters in this battleground state. The campaign took on a more heated air as President Obama suggested in Iowa that the Republican ticket would “end Medicare as we know it,” a warning echoed in North Carolina by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. ...

Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan signaled that they intended to go on the offensive, challenging the assumption that Republicans were better off playing down the issue. They are gambling that anxiety about deficits, the influence of the Tea Party movement and changing demographics will give them a chance to convince voters that the time has come to confront the rapidly mounting costs of sustaining entitlement programs. Mr. Ryan is scheduled to visit Florida this month.

“Every even-numbered year in Florida, seniors are accustomed to Mediscare tactics; that’s what Democrats do,” said Ed Gillespie, a senior adviser to Mr. Romney. “The fact is, we’re going to go on offense here. Because the president has raided the Medicare trust fund to the tune of $716 billion to pay for a massive expansion of government known as Obamacare.”

“There won’t be a single senior citizen in Florida who won’t know that by November,” he said.

Well, freakin' right, I was beginning to wonder there for a minute.

More at Big Government, "Paul Ryan Didn't Gut Medicare, Barack Obama Did."

CNN's Soledad O'Brien Cribs 'Talking Points Memo' in Feeble Attack on Paul Ryan's Medicare Plan

At Big Journalism, CNN's Soledad O'Brien Quotes Left-Wing Blog to Attack Ryan Plan.

Here's the first part of the Soledad's segment, headlined "scare tactics," just like Democrat talking points. She shuffling the Talking Points Memo piece at 3:23 minutes. It's all leftist talking points!

Later in the segment Barbara Comstock, Virginia Statehouse Delegate and Romney adviser, smacks down O'Brien, who then fidgets through the TPM hit piece to get back on point. NewsBuster has that segment, "Soledad O'Brien Caught Reading Liberal Blog During Heated Debate With Romney Adviser." O'Brien's seen flipping through TPM's crib sheet at 2:41 minutes.

O'Brien's not "keeping them honest." She's shilling for the administration. She's so transparently partisan it's ridiculous. But you gotta love her look of deep consternation as she ruffles through the papers and the camera cuts back to Ms. Comstock. She's getting mad! Mad that someone has key info to smack down the left's lies!

Again, I was starting to get worried. Maybe Team Romney's finally getting with the program.

The Other McCain has more, "Caught! CNN’s Soledad O’Brien Uses Liberal Blog TPM for Show-Prep."

Paul Ryan Surges With Seniors

I guess they're not too worried about Ryan throwing 'em off a cliff.

At Director Blue, "As Seniors Flock to Paul Ryan and Fiscal Sanity, Axelrod Campaign Dials Smear-Ray Setting to '100'."

Mitt Romney Sought 'Pact' With Obama to Take 'Business or Family or Taxes' Off the Table

As I reported earlier, the race is basically tied, and while the it's still too early to tell the size of the Paul Ryan polling bump, the campaign is clearly energized and appears ready to take it to the sleazebag Democrats.

I say "appears ready" because I have lingering doubts that Mitt Romney fully understands the depth of Team Obama's moral abyss (infinitely bottomless) and whether he's ready to fight back twice as hard to destroy the left's morally bankrupt politics of personal destruction. Progressive are animals, they're pigs. The toxic mudslinging this fall's going to make even Sarah Palin blush.

Michelle Malkin expressed a sense of hope the other night on Twitter, when Romney cheered the hearts of activists across the land by picking the conservative chair of the GOP House Budget Committee:

Now, if we never see Andrea Saul stumbling & rambling on TV again, that would really be a relief. michellemalkin.com/2012/08/11/thi…
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) August 11, 2012

In recent interviews Michelle's been exhorting Team Romney to stand up the the lies: "Hey Team Romney, 'Get a Hang of Yourselves!'"

I think we all need to redouble the call, considering the news that Romney sought a "pact" with Team Obama to keep "business or family or taxes" off limits. See the Los Angeles Times, "Obama seizes lead in race to define Romney." The report suggests that Obama's attack ads have been "trashing" Mitt Romney, and the Republican nominee's been slow to respond. But this part is jaw-dropping:

In ads airing heavily in states most likely to decide the election, the president is already weaving those attacks into a larger case against Romney on the economy — and, more important, against the Republican fiscal agenda championed by none other than [Paul] Ryan.

"You work hard, stretch every penny," an announcer says in a new Obama ad about Romney. "But chances are you pay a higher tax rate than him. Mitt Romney made $20 million in 2010, but paid only 14% in taxes — probably less than you." The ad says Romney wants to "give millionaires another tax break and raise taxes on middle-class families," which Romney denies. "He pays less, you pay more," the ad says.

The potency of Obama's attacks is best measured by Romney's response. He recently hired corporate crisis PR specialist Michele Davis to mount an aggressive defense. He told NBC that he wanted a pact with Obama to stop attack ads on such subjects as "business or family or taxes." And Romney told Fox News that his "biggest challenge is making sure that my message is able to break through all the clutter that comes from the Obama team."

Romney's selection of Ryan is by far the candidate's most important move to address that challenge, even if its potential effectiveness is open to debate. Obama's campaign has pounced on Ryan's candidacy to amplify its message that the Republican's proposals favor wealthy taxpayers like Romney over the middle class.

On ABC's"This Week"on Sunday, Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod called Ryan a right-wing ideologue who "constructed a budget that, like Romney, would lavish trillions of dollars of tax cuts, most of them on the wealthy."

Strategists in both parties say Romney made a serious error in neglecting to respond quickly to Obama ads trashing his record as the leader of Bain Capital, the Boston investment firm that he founded. The millions of dollars spent by presidential candidates on TV advertising in battleground states can be hugely influential with voters, and Romney gave Obama a three-month head start in defining him.

"In those voters' minds, they're starting to fill in — choosing colors from the palette — who Romney is, and the Romney campaign didn't offer them any colors to choose from," said John Weaver, who was a top advisor to Republican John McCain, the 2008 nominee. "I don't think it's been wise to wait this long to deal with it."

Continue reading.

The piece cites top Democrat strategist Bob Shrum, who worked for (loser) John Kerry in 2004. Shrum suggests the Democrat attacks are hitting home and its getting late in the game to turn things around, as the Times summarizes, "Romney's failure to start telling his life story while Obama's team was assailing his business record would make it harder to accomplish now."

Team Romney must know that the Obama campaign will do anything, f-king anything. They. Simply. Do. Not. Have. Ethics. They don't care. Recall from last week, "Obama campaign: Don't blame us for ad blaming Romney for cancer death." The Democrats are working on lies and deceit, and they know they can get away with it. Over the weekend, CBS News' Nancy Cordes gave Obama spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter a pass on the Joe Soptic scandal, and just yesterday Soledad O'Brien also served as an Obama lapdog, failing to grill Cutter on the Obama campaign's improprieties, "Stephanie Cutter’s free pass from media extends to Anderson Cooper 360."

Despite this, Team Romney has failed to pick up the pace and effectively slam the Obama campaign for its lies. Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom had twelve minutes on Sunday's "Meet the Press" to call out Cutter for the lies, and he never raised the issues directly. I was practically pulling my hair out watching that clip. What is wrong with these people?!! The MSM hacks won't do it for you. Republicans will get lucky when idiots like Debbie What-An-Ass Schultz make gaffes so big you could drive a Mack Truck through them. And Wolf Blitzer corrected the DNC chair in a manner that one would expect from the media across the board. But it won't happen. You'll get a gift here or there, but it's not happening media-wide, across the information battlespace. I've been saying it, and many others, but Romney's running against the Obama campaign and his political enablers in the Democrat-Media-Complex. It's not a fair fight. Republicans can assume nothing resembling even-handedness, so they've got to seize the initiative themselves. The talks shows get a lot of play, not just during the initial airing but in the blogs and campaign spots later. Team Romney can't waste a single opportunity.

Advice to Romney: This is war man! It's time to go of offense and do it now! Game on!

New Zogby Poll: 'The Ryan Effect'

See Newsmax, "John Zogby Poll: Ryan Gives Romney Big Push in Swing States, Independents."

Mitt Romney’s campaign has gotten a decisive bump upwards with the selection of Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate, a new poll by JZ Analytics reveals.

The poll — the first survey conducted after Romney announced Ryan as his vice presidential choice — shows the Romney/Ryan ticket tied with Obama/Biden at 46 percent.

But a JZ Analytics poll from a few weeks ago had Obama leading Romney by 5 percentage points, and most major polls also had Obama comfortably in the lead before the Ryan selection.

Continue reading.

And see Nice Deb, "The Ryan Bump: New Zogby Poll Shows Huge Boost for Romney in Swing States."

Zogby finds 45.2 percent of independents back #RomneyRyan, compared to 40.1 for Obama/Biden. But the methodology doesn't indicate how swing states were sampled. See: "Methodology, JZ Analytics Poll of Likely Voters in United States, 8/11/12 thru 8/12/12." And the summary is here: "New JZ Analytics Telephone Poll: 'The Ryan Effect'."

I take Zogby's polling with a bigger grain of salt than usual. He's basically a leftist pollster with some credibility problems. The methods look pretty good but I'm not sure if he randomly sampled folks in swing states, and there's no cross-tabs at the links.

That said, here's Rasmussen, "Presidential Tracking Poll":

Monday, August 13, 2012 -- The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows Mitt Romney attracting support from 47% of voters nationwide, while President Obama earns the vote from 44%. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate, and four percent (4%) are undecided.

Data available to Platinum Members shows that Romney does a bit better when leaners are included....

These results are based upon interviews conducted nightly and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. As a result, two-thirds of the interviews conducted for today’s update were completed after it was announced that Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan will be Romney’s vice presidential running mate. The announcement so far has had little impact on the numbers. See tracking history.

And Gallup's presidential election tracking poll shows the campaign tied up at 46 percent through August 12th, "Election 2012 Trial Heat: Obama vs. Romney."

It's going to take a few more days of polling to really get a feel for Ryan's impact, although Gallup also reports that the response to Ryan is historically low for veep selections, "Reaction to Ryan as VP Pick Among Least Positive Historically: But Republicans more OK with Ryan compared with past vice presidential candidates."

More on this later...

CNN's Wolf Blitzer Schools Befuddled DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz!

I've got CNN on right now, and it's all Medicare all the time, and by the looks of Debbie What-An-Ass Schultz, the Dems haven't got a clue.

Here's Wolf correcting the DNC chair:

PREVIOUSLY: "Campaigns Spar Over Medicare."

Paul Ryan Heckled in Iowa (VIDEO)

Althouse has it, "Paul Ryan, heckled in Iowa, said 'We're used to this in Wisconsin'."

More at Instapundit, "PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: So the community organizers Obama n’ Axelrod have sent hecklers to Ryan’s speech in Iowa. Time to mirror them."

Lots of links at the post, but that first quote's from Monica Crowley on Twitter.

MORE at The Other McCain, "Iowa Flashback: August 2011" (via Memeorandum).

Campaigns Spar Over Medicare

#RomneyRyan 2012 on the attack, at Buzzfeed, "In Florida, Romney Hits Obama For Cutting Medicare" (via Memeorandum).

And the neo-socialist Obama campaign is out with a new ad, seen at USA Today, "Obama targets Ryan (and Romney) on Medicare."

Plus, Michelle Fields provides some reality for the reality-based community:

BONUS: Here's Paul Ryan's piece from 2010, "A road map to saving Medicare."

Romney Goes Back to Basics with Ryan

An op-ed from Glenn Reynolds, at USA Today (via Instapundit):

With trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, and the exploding national debt (which Obama called unconscionable when it was about half as big as it has become under his stewardship) it seems time for a Back To Basics approach. And that's clearly the direction favored by Romney, the turnaround artist who specialized in taking mismanaged entities and making them work. His choice of Ryan simply takes it to a new level. As Internet humorist IowaHawk tweeted on Saturday: "Paul Ryan represents Obama's most horrifying nightmare: Math."

Yes, math. Ryan is the expert on the often Byzantine complexities of the federal budget. His budget proposal last year, though rejected by Democrats in the Senate, represented a serious effort to rein in runaway spending. The only cogent criticism, really, was that it didn't go far enough.

In fact, the math shows our spending is unsustainable. Nothing can save it: Not higher taxes, not lower interest rates on federal borrowing, not financial jiggery-pokery from the Fed. If we continue on this path, the result will be disaster: We'll be Greece, with nuclear weapons.

Romney's selection of Ryan shows that he understands the dire nature of the problem, and that he's serious about addressing it. But it also lays down a marker.

If Americans take the future of their country seriously, they'll reject the Obama approach, which has been disastrous, and elect Romney-Ryan, along with a substantial number of fiscally conservative members of Congress. That will give America a chance to avoid financial ruin.

RTWT.

Romney's Decision Reframes Race as Battle of Ideologies

I just love the framework of this piece from Maeve Reston, at the Los Angeles Times, "Romney's choice of Ryan reframes campaign."

Take a stroll over at Daily Kos for some quick confirmation.

Here's ABC's report from Friday night when the news broke:

National Stagnation or Renewal? Why Romney Picked Ryan

From Kim Strassel, at the Wall Street Journal, "Why Romney Chose Ryan":

His running mate offers Romney the opportunity to explain to Americans that they have a choice between national stagnation and renewal.

Mitt Romney did much more this weekend than announce a running mate. He unveiled a significant change in strategy. The 2012 election is now a choice, not just a referendum.

Conservatives have spent much of this summer reassuring themselves. They've pointed out the extraordinary sums President Obama has thrown at crippling Mr. Romney. They've noted how ugly and brutal those attacks have been. They've comforted themselves that, for all the smears, Mr. Romney is within a few points of the incumbent in national tracking polls.

Yet the same can be said on the other side. The economy is teetering, the deficit exploding, the nation unhappy with his signature legislation. Daily, Mr. Romney beats the White House with these failures. But he has barely moved the polling dial.

Mr. Romney's choice of House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, one of the party's star reformers, is an attempt to break out of the stalemate, change the dynamic. It was foremost a shrewd acknowledgment on Mr. Romney's part that his path to the White House is going to take more than pointing out the obvious. He needs to run on bold ideas, as Mr. Ryan has, and convince Americans those ideas are the way to prosperity.

In fairness, the Romney campaign had the elements in place. It's taken some time, but Mr. Romney today is sporting a fairly bold reform agenda, from his tax cuts to his Medicare reforms, to his vow to end ObamaCare. And the candidate has been dutifully repeating that this election is a choice between two very different futures for the country. Yet his policy and his words were largely lost amid his campaign's intense focus on the president.

Mr. Ryan provides the crucial shift in emphasis, the opportunity to go on offense. We will now have a focus on, and explanation of, the choice between stagnation and renewal. This is what Mr. Ryan excels at—not just crafting ideas, but explaining them in a positive and serious way. This ability is why the congressman—despite his supposedly extremist reform blueprint and budget (says the left)—has continued to win a district that in 2010 went for Mr. Obama.

Continue reading.

#RomneyRyan2012 in Wisconsin

At ABC News, "Paul Ryan Chokes Up at Wisconsin Homecoming Rally."

A full video clip is here.

Plus, at Instapundit, "PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: Romney responds to heckler in Wisconsin, then tells Obama to get his campaign out of the gutter."

And see the Los Angeles Times, "For Wisconsin rally crowd, Romney-Ryan is a dream team."

Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan Interview on '60 Minutes' (VIDEO)

They're a great team.

And Ryan remarks how he and his family have given their lives to public service. That's an honorable thing. You don't abandon conservative principles by running for elective office or working in the public sector, as some vile progressives expect at risk of hypocrisy. No, Ryan's made it his calling to apply his values to the public sphere, in hopes of improving society and making our country better for future generations. Progressive don't care about improving society. All they care about is expanding government and obtaining and holding political power in veneration of the state.

Lonely Conservative has more, "Video: Romney and Ryan’s 60 Minutes Interview."