GO CRAZY, FOLKS! GO CRAZY! - (UPDATED)

When I finished watching Paul Ryan's speech at the RNC, I was really curious to see what the liberal talking heads over at MSNBC thought.  I, despite our well known "mancrush" on Paul Ryan here at the Chaos (heck, even my daughter said, "He's hot!"), tried to remain objective and see the speech as an independent voter might.  After flipping stations, I heard Lawrence O'Donnell complain that although the speech was very good and effective, it lacked much substance. With that, I smiled and got ready to head to work.

What, pray tell, caused me to smile you might ask. (No, really, ask me)  It was this.  My chief complaint about Ryan's speech was that it didn't include the type of policy depth that I like about him.  The truth is that the young VP candidate is totally in his element when the facts & figures are flying.  He's sincere, he's knowledgable, he controls the discussion with a fully logical and rational mind and temperment.  His sincere honesty, in tackling America's great fiscal problems exposes a deep and abiding love of this nation.

So I smiled.

Paul Ryan had just finished making a clear and compelling case for the failure of this administration, its utter lack of direction and focus while making a counterpoint argument for the person of Mitt Romney as a President who will come in & help correct this nation's course.  He had the Republican faithful clapping their hands and stomping their feet, and made a very strong play for the independents who have had enough of President Obama.  He even had several pointed arrows directed right at the current occupant of the White House, almost as a counterplay for several perceived offenses that Obama had shown toward him over the past few years.  (As I tweeted tonight following one of the many zingers, "If Obama's like Elvis, he just shot up his TV".) 

But I smiled, because he did all this with one arm tied behind his back.  Here was the GOP's big Policy Wonk, their Wunderkind, yet he left the facts and figures in his backpack, like forgotten homework left inside his Trapper Keeper.  He came out and helped seal the end of Obama's presidency, and he did without even using his best weapon against the president - MATH.

Can you imagine how the White House is viewing this?  Poor Old Joe is in a corner, sucking his thumb and clinging to his blankie right now.  Does he really want to debate this guy?  If the liberal media's biggest complaint was that Paul Ryan didn't have enough substance in his speech, then we've already won.  It's like watching Ozzie Smith hit a game winning home run and then complaining that your team only lost because you didn't hit enough groundballs to the guy.

As his speech ended, I could hear Jack Buck's famous call when Ozzie Smith actually did hit a game winning home run against the LA Dodgers in game 5 of the 1985 playoffs, "Go crazy, folks!  Go crazy!"

Here are several of the big hits Paul Ryan had tonight:

"After four years of getting the run-around, America needs a turnaround, and the man for the job is Governor Mitt Romney.

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With all their attack ads, the president is just throwing away money – and he’s pretty experienced at that.

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What did the taxpayers get out of the Obama stimulus?  More debt.  That money wasn’t just spent and wasted – it was borrowed, spent, and wasted

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You would think that any president, whatever his party, would make job creation, and nothing else, his first order of economic business.  

But this president didn’t do that.  Instead, we got a long, divisive, all-or-nothing attempt to put the federal government in charge of health care. 

Obamacare comes to more than two thousand pages of rules, mandates, taxes, fees, and fines that have no place in a free country.  

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The greatest threat to Medicare is Obamacare, and we’re going to stop it.

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It all started off with stirring speeches, Greek columns, the thrill of something new.  Now all that’s left is a presidency adrift, surviving on slogans that already seem tired, grasping at a moment that has already passed, like a ship trying to sail on yesterday’s wind.

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All the corner shops in our towns and cities, the restaurants, cleaners, gyms, hair salons, hardware stores – these didn’t come out of nowhere.  A lot of heart goes into each one.  And if small businesspeople say they made it on their own, all they are saying is that nobody else worked seven days a week in their place.  Nobody showed up in their place to open the door at five in the morning.  Nobody did their thinking, and worrying, and sweating for them.  After all that work, and in a bad economy, it sure doesn’t help to hear from their president that government gets the credit.  What they deserve to hear is the truth: Yes, you did build that. 

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Wherever men and women rise up for their own freedom, they will know that the American president is on their side.  Instead of managing American decline, leaving allies to doubt us and adversaries to test us, we will act in the conviction that the United States is still the greatest force for peace and liberty that this world has ever known.

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President Obama is the kind of politician who puts promises on the record, and then calls that the record. 

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College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.  Everyone who feels stuck in the Obama economy is right to focus on the here and now.  And I hope you understand this too, if you’re feeling left out or passed by: You have not failed, your leaders have failed you.

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None of us have to settle for the best this administration offers – a dull, adventureless journey from one entitlement to the next, a government-planned life, a country where everything is free but us.

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I was on my own path, my own journey, an American journey where I could think for myself, decide for myself, define happiness for myself.  That’s what we do in this country.  That’s the American Dream.  That’s freedom, and I’ll take it any day over the supervision and sanctimony of the central planners.

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We will not duck the tough issues, we will lead. 

We will not spend four years blaming others, we will take responsibility. 

We will not try to replace our founding principles, we will reapply our founding principles.

The work ahead will be hard.  These times demand the best of us – all of us, but we can do this.  Together, we can do this.

We can get this country working again.  We can get this economy growing again.  We can make the safety net safe again.  We can do this. 

Whatever your political party, let’s come together for the sake of our country.  Join Mitt Romney and me.  Let’s give this effort everything we have.  Let’s see this through all the way.  Let’s get this done."

Go crazy, folks! Go crazy!

1-20-13

THE RECOVERY BEGINS....

UPDATE:  Despite all the bluster over the actual date of the GM plant closing in Janesville referenced in Ryan's speech, Ryan is technically correct that the plant was closed after Obama took office.  Here's a story from the Journal Sentinel from April, 2009 that begins with this lede, "Production at the General Motors plant in Janesville is scheduled to end for good this week."