Paul Ryan's Speech as Job Creation For the Fact Checkers

     We must say that his speech, and this entire GOP convention, has certainly resuscitated at least the industry of the fact checkers. Certainly I suspect that this is one "swing vote" that Ryan nailed down in his speech last night. With this fellow around, they will never want for work.

   "Coming right off Ryan’s speech Wolf Blitzer and Erin Burnett seemed unable not to mention that Ryan’s speech had well … contained a lot of pretty huge fibs. So euphemisms to the rescue. The transcript …

Blitzer: So there he is, the republican vice presidential nominee and his beautiful family there. His mom is up there. This is exactly what this crowd of republicans here certainly republicans all across the country were hoping for. He delivered a powerful speech. Erin, a powerful speech. Although I marked at least seven or eight points I’m sure the fact checkers will have some opportunities to dispute if they want to go forward, I’m sure they will. As far as mitt romney’s campaign is concerned, paul ryan on this night delivered. Burnett: That’s right. Certainly so. We were jotting down points. There will be issues with some of the facts. But it motivated people. He’s a man who says I care deeply about every single word. I want to do a good job. And he delivered on that. Precise, clear, and passionate.

     http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/08/great_moments_in_cnn_euphemisms.php?ref=fpblg

     CNN, of course, never criticizes the Republican party anymore they prefer euphemisms when discussing them. As they fear nothing more in life anymore than Rush Limbaugh calling them liberals.

      How was Ryan? I thought it was pretty good as an aesthetic exercise. He's got that Eddie Haskell thing down pat. It's not for nothing that his high school class voted him biggest brown noser-true story.

      http://www.tmz.com/2012/08/13/paul-ryan-high-school-prom-king-brown-noser/

      He's great at this kind of "Aw shucks, Mr. Cleaver! I'm not the one who is destroying Medicare!"

      "Mr. Cleaver-I would never lie to you!"

      Yet, the Congressman lied. He lied again. He lied a lot. There was hardly one true word spoken in it. To be sure, this is the new Romney campaign strategy. Forget about the fact-checkers, they need to get out of the way.

      Romney believes the attacks on Obama over welfare are working and if they are he doesn't care if it's not true.

      The idea that this is a pure referendum on the President and the economy is a mere memory. Make no mistake about it, the Romney team has long since given that up. The WSJ back in June told them that wasn't working.

      What they have now determined is that a bad economy-and the current economy isn't as bad as it could be anyway-is not enough. This is where the racist dog whistle comes in. The Romney team has declared the fact checkers personal non grata.

     So Ryan last night had no trouble lying to the American people and looking real earnest about it as he lied to them.

       The most outrageous of course was blaming the President for the GM plant in Wisconsin that closed before he got in office. Then there was the chutzpah in yet again criticizing the President for not doing Simpson-Bowles, when Ryan had walked of the commission-and encouraged other Republicans not to support it.

       The speech was shockingly dishonest. Indeed, the whole convention is built around the Urban Legend of You didn't build that. This is not hard to show. What does bode well is that the media largely seems to be calling him on it.

        http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/paul-ryan-convention-speech-media-backlash.php?ref=fpa

        The worry is as Greg Sargent says-will it matter? The trouble is that in politics, those of us who are political animals and are conversant with the basic, essential facts of policy, history, etc. are in the position of having to convince those who aren't.

        That's what all this talk about undecideds and swing voters amounts to. Basically the people who don't pay much attention, and have only a very cursory understanding of what's going on, get to decide the fate of all of us.

         For me, and many of us, obviously Ryan's speech was rank and fallacious. However, what I don't know for sure, is what the great undecideds make of it all and what works with them-what clicks.

         The Ryan speech was impressive on the level of mechanics, it was a fine aesthetic specimen. At this point the Romney campaign is both epistemologically and ethically bankrupt. They have no hope but to run an aesthetically pleasing campaign.

         Will it work? I don't think so. But again, that's assuming informed voters. What's not easy to say is what someone who has little opinion coming in came away with from a speech like Ryan's.

         I'm not at all sure that it's the home run the conservatives need to claim it was. I definitely believe that they way overstated Ann Romney's speech's greatness. I don't think it did very much for any swing voters to say nothing of female swing voters-although we'll have to wait for the polls.

         I don't think Ryan's shtick necessarily set the undecideds' souls on fire, either. But his aw shucks persona may have some effectiveness.

        It's a good thing that the MSM is largely calling out Ryan. At the end of the day, this matters a lot. After all, the undecideds will likely see Ryan's piece knocked for its mendacity. Much as I hate to speak with less than reverence about undecideds they are largely bandwagon jumpers.

       I'd go as far as saying that there are basically four things that animate the independents. the undecideds, the "mushy middle."

       1) They want to believe that they are in the Sensible Center-think David Brooks. They reject any idea that is widely declared to be "extreme" on either side. Note that the Center is not a static place though, but negotiated by the back and forth of the partisan wars. The Center is reverence for the paved road while abhorring how the paved road was built. The undecideds hate to see how sausage is made, while loving sausage.

      2) They want to feel like they are unusually highly discerning in their conclusions. They love the flattery the media gives them of being painstaking and not making their decision until the very last minute.

       3) So they are vain. Nothing appeals to them more than the word :"serious"-in connection with themselves.

       4) For all that, they are congenitally incapable of holding any view for more than two seconds that is truly a minority view, that goes against the grain of what the other people they hear are saying. So I suspect that with the media all dumping on Ryan they may not be able to hold out long.

       The reason for number 4-they're basically weak-willed as they are led by their vanity. They want to feel that their opinion is of great consequence and the media does everything to flatter it at ever turn. However, for this reason they find it tough to resist the current of any opinion. For how else do they know they are consequential if others don't agree with them? Again, they like to drive over the paved roads while tut-tutting those who actually built them.

      Just think. It is these folks who the Romney team is trying to work on feverishly. It's sobering to realize that whether or not the New Deal is over-as it will be under a Romney Administration-is in the hands of these undecideds.

      So if the media continues to call out Ryan then that might well have some impact. Of course, the other question is if they media continuues to call them out or if the Rush Limbaughs of the Right browbeat them into stopping it at some point.