Friday, August 10, 2012

The Case for Paul Ryan for Vice President

The next day, a pro-Barack Obama super PAC began running an ad blaming Mitt Romney and Bain Capital for the death of a steelworker's wife (who actually had insurance and passed away seven years after Romney ran Bain and five years after her husband was laid off from a money-losing steel plant).
The Obama campaign has, more than once, implied that Romney is a felon.
We often have the tendency to believe that political attacks are purely cynical, but that's probably not the case. Some attacks are presumptive.
Many liberals already believe that Republicans wouldn't mind seeing children (poor, minority and handicapped children, at least) contracting deadly bacterial diseases, even if conservatives won't explicitly say so. Many liberals assume that the wealthy (especially those who have an exotic career, such as "banker") never really pay their share in taxes and probably cheat and devastate the poor to achieve success. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid might not have any proof that Romney hasn't paid a penny in taxes in a decade, but it plays to a larger social truth about conservatives; it is a given.
So, no matter whom Republican Mitt Romney finally taps as his vice presidential nominee, Democrats will accuse this person of crimes against common decency and fairness. This person will, you can bet, be indicted as someone hellbent on "dismantling" Social Security, sacrificing Medicare to the gods of social Darwinism and "slashing" the safety net into worthless tatters.

Read more: http://reason.com/archives/2012/08/09/the-case-for-paul-ryan-for-vice-presiden

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