And with the issuance of two announcements this week regarding the upcoming Presidential campaign, the usually interesting quadrennial race just got a little bit more … interesting? Bizarre? More than usually contentious? All of the above and more, to judge from this week’s surfing across the oceans of the internet. So Mittens discovered the existence – heretofore unsuspected by the larger public – of his fiscally responsible and constitutionalist backbone and tagged Paul Ryan as his running mate… that makes for a snappy bumper sticker right of the top of my head; “Time for a little R & R.†Said prospective VP nominee had never swam across my ken as a possible, but then Mittens himself had never seemed to me to be a likely prospect for the top o’the ticket either … altogether too bland, to nice, too establishment GOP … but then I am only an interested amateur and Tea Party enthusiast. All props to him for seeing that the fiscally responsible, strictly Constitutionalist and relatively free market segment of the libertarian-conservative public constituted a powerful voting block.
So … Paul Ryan; hope that he and his family, all of his friends, neighbors and and everyone that he has ever known are all battened down against the coming onslaught headed his way from the usual media crowd, also known as Pravda on the Potomac. Frankly, no wonder at all that Paul Ryan or his people didn’t want in the least to be interviewed by a whiny regular at Salon.com. Mainstream media establishments have proved comprehensively that they were so deep in the tank in the tank for Obama last time that they probably needed a deep-sea diver’s helmet and someone up above feeding them oxygen. And nothing much has changed – yet again, they seem dedicated soul and body to drag his tottering Juggernaut over the finish line. At least those who still have a job and whose organization is still functioning will be dedicated to that project, although it would seem that at least some of them must be entertaining doubts.
Yes, established media organs – you have showed us where your loyalties lie. I wouldn’t want to talk to you either. Over the last four or five years, you have dedicated yourselves to trashing Tea Partiers, libertarian-conservatives, and traditionalists generally. So, no – we really don’t want to talk to you. Not you, not the pollsters that call incessantly: who knows who is really asking, and what will that information obtained from us really be used for? No, we don’t trust you, and we certainly don’t trust this current administration. Look at what happened to Joe the Plumber, to the owner of Gibson Guitar and any number of others … and include the owners of Chick-fil-A, too. Don’t’ forget about how the Department of Homeland security made grumbling noises about veterans and tea partiers being potential terrorists, too. And we don’t much want – unless we are a stubborn and stalwart sort – to even go out and joust in those wide open public internet spaces available to us … since, in a lot of cases (notably this one) the administrators are pretty obviously biased. Pity, that.
We’ll vote in November – that’s all that I’ll admit to at this present time.
The other announcement – that Joe Biden, the one-man walking gaffe machine would still adorn the bottom of the ticket. Knock me over with a feather – I thought sure that the announcement would concern health issues and a desire to spend more time with his family. But whatever – the man’s got a gift … and the gift is to the Romney-Ryan campaign, especially if Biden makes too many more appearances. Of course, the man at the top o’ the ticket seems to have stuck his beautifully polished Gucci loafer in his mouth a good few times, too. The ‘you didn’t build that’ meme seems to have gone down like a whole pineapple enema with the small business community … which, as sources like the Chambers of Commerce never tire of reminding us, are the engine running the whole American middle class economy.
Yes, a small to medium business of their own, and being their own boss is one of those things that just about every American, or prospective American with a bit of hustle and drive in them aspires to. Count me among them – as I have just spend the last week tediously transcribing a 19th century ledger book for a client – and thanked the deity every morning that as tedious and exacting as it was, I’d rather be doing that at my own computer in the corner of my own little home office, then climbing into the office business drag and driving across town to someone else’s office to spend the next eight hours. Way to piss off just about every striving American and independent consultant, President Obama. Do, by all means, stay loyal to Joe Biden, and whoever is strategizing your campaign. Encourage your administration bureaucrats and officials to be vengeful, you media minions to be ugly, your local protest element to be ugly and threatening, and all of them to be irrational. Every instance will be reason for any number of quiet Tea Partiers to decide that R & R is good enough on November 2.
Me, I think this is the beginning of the preference cascade – that moment that everyone who has been made deeply unhappy by the policies of this administration looks around, and discovers that they are not alone.
