Paul Ryan represents a significant swath of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel‘s readership, so it’s kind of ridonkulous that they are just now getting around to asking questions about Ryan like, “Ideologue or problem solver? Reasonable or radical?”
It is equally ridonkulous that Craig Gilbert has to pretend that there are two equally likely answers to those questions when any analysis of Ryan’s record, cursory or computer-modeled, reveals the answers plainly.
If Ryan were a “problem-solver,” he’d have more than two bills to his credit in over a decade in congress (he named a post office and cut taxes on arrows).
If Ryan were reasonable, he wouldn’t have vowed on day one of Obama’s presidency to tank the USA for political gain, he wouldn’t run around saying all the time that there’s no compromise (“You’re not going to have any truce”), and he wouldn’t be the most extremely partisan VP pick of any party in more than a century (seriously: Romney-Ryan is the equivalent of Kerry-Kucinich).
This is not hard, people. Paul Ryan is, and always has been, a far-right true believer.
I’ll say it again. There people [Alex strategists] aren’t dumb. They recruit dumb messingers just to give that empression. You always ask for more than you expect to get. You always create excitement, even if you have to lie. In public media, any press is good press. Because if it’s bad, you can always spin it otherwise if you have the money. The only bad press is no press or ho hum press. Or allowing a movement to spread without countering.
“Paul Ryan is, and always has been, a far-right true believer.”
Yeah, check the record:
http://www.ontheissues.org/House/Paul_Ryan.htm
There’s a terrific (with a bit of humor sprinkled in) analysis and takedown of Congressman Ryan in the “Fryin’ Ryan” post at “Grumbles From an Old Grouch” (grumblesfromanoldgrouch.com)