THE GOP’S “RYANSTONE COWBOY” CHANGES THE 2014 ELECTION NARRATIVE

  THE GOP’S “RYANSTONE COWBOY”  CHANGES THE 2014 ELECTION  NARRATIVE

Following the Dem’s public lovefest over the Obamacare recruitment numbers they received another major boost to their supposedly hopeless chances for the November 2014 elections. Paul Ryan burst onto the scene like the mythical “Rhinestone Cowboy”, as immortalized by Glen Campbell in one of the greatest pop/country western hits of all time. 

He has made a comeback as “The Ryanstone Cowboy, riding out on horse in a star spangled rodeo”. Ryan, Romney’s Vice -Presidential running mate obviously feeling forgotten, (as the Rhinestone Cowboy was) - in the Presidential stakes-, decided to put out a Republican budget and in the process remind everyone that he should be the number one contender for the Republican Presidential nomination. He would show them who it was that could define the  Republican agenda . He needn’t have issued a budget as he had reached a compromise with his Democratic counterpart, basically for each side to do nothing, till 2015. So hot on the heels of Obama’s triumph he fed the Democrats with more fodder to run on. He accentuated the very economic differences that had lost him and Romney the 2012 election campaign. 

RYAN A POLARIZING CHARACTER

When Romney elected Ryan his running mate it was really to give him some Tea Party credentials. Ryan is considered one of the intellects of the Republican Party as well. His agenda then was the same as it is now. Ryan, supported by his mentor and protector Speaker of the House, Boehner, was elevated to the pinnacle policy maker for the GOP in the House. In a nutshell his philosophy was trickle down economics and little or no social welfare programs.. (Blogs: The Unravelling of a Ryan - Post - Akin, 8/22/12 and The Not so Private Ryan and Radicalism, 8/8/12.) 

Ryan also is a staunch Pro Life Catholic and an unashamed admirer of Ayn Rand. 

The “Ryanstone Cowboy” has a number of very positive features. He is consistent and transparent, a rarity in modern day politics. As Obama commented, his 2010, 2012, and 2014 budgets are the same. Ryan’s problem is the world has changed since 2010 while he has yet to.  

IN RYAN’S WORLD THERE ARE “GIVERS” AND “TAKERS”

Ryan has divided Americans up into “The Givers” and “The Takers”. No prizes for who they are supposed to represent. Romney calculated “The Takers” at 47%. Ryan has found an additional group of “Takers”, namely those who have signed up for the Affordable Health Care Act, (AHCA), and the country, aka “The Givers”, cannot afford to pay for it. So axing the ACHA is the centerpiece of his balancing the budget. Now following the success of the ACHA enrollment certain Republican Members were hoping that they could kinda compromise a bit and back those pieces that are helping everybody, including "The Givers".  The provision that no-one could be thrown off insurance or be refused to join one if they had a preexisting medical condition was an example of what these "naive" Republicans were talking about . Also allowing offspring to remain on their parents’ insurance plans till they are 26 years old is another provision many Republicans apparently favor.  

Ryan instead of ignoring these requests, on being questioned as to his budget proposal, maintained that the country could not afford this. (Can you visualize the adds saying that Ryan wants you, once again, to lose your insurance because you had a heart attack. Or your daughter has been diagnosed with a congenital heart condition so you can’t change jobs as she has a precondition and/or you have run out of funds so she can get no more treatment. The reason being he wants to give "The Givers" a tax break!).

Ryan also detailed his cuts on what is called discretionary spending. So exactly what the Democrats want to see defined in a clear cut fashion has been reiterated as Republican Party Policy. Of the total 4.8 trillion dollar cuts, 3.3 trillion are being cut from the low income, “Takers” programs spanning from education to food stamps to health care. “The Givers” on the other hand are given large tax breaks presumably to stimulate the economy for “The Takers”. Medicare as it exists at present is history under the Ryan budget. That alone should be catastrophic for the GOP.

So while Ryan had his first success thrust upon him as the Vice Presidential nominee, he now like the “Rhinestone Cowboy” wants to make a comeback. But the environment has changed. While some members of the Republican caucus are calling for concessions on Obamacare and thereby legitimizing it others are condemning the budget as too liberal. Sarah Palin the Godmother of the Tea Party has called his budget  a “Stinkburger” and apparently the budget is angering the Tea Party base. This response has shown how the world has changed around Ryan. From being the darling of the Tea Party he is now the “Stinkburger”.

The Ryan budget narrowly passed the House and in a rare moment for this Congress 12 Republicans voted against it. It has no hope of passing the Senate but its legitimacy as the Republican manifesto has been consecrated by that vote.

RYAN’S BUDGET, THE DEMOCRATS AND WOMEN

A chief focus of the Democratic strategy has been the rights of women. The President has signed an Executive Order that will ensure that all Federal employees and all those who have Federal Contracts will have to pay equal pay for equal work. He has utilized this as a theme in his ongoing campaigning on the stump. There is no way this will pass into law - the Republicans in the Senate have filibustered it and those in the House won’t even allow it to come up for a vote. 

The National Women’s Law Center has shown how Ryan’s cuts would disproportionately disadvantage women. His massive cuts in discretionary spending impact women as they represent the majority of recipients of this help. For example 70% of the adults receiving Medicaid are women, while 63% of those on Food Stamps are females and 62% of the student Pell grants are the female gender. Women are really hit in the certain programs covered by discretionary spending where they represent the following percentages: supplemental social security programs, (85%), housing vouchers, (82%), and child assistance, (75%). 

The Democratic Central Committee has issued a statement that while the Democrats are pushing for income equality the Ryan budget does the opposite. The budget accentuates their mantra that this is for the benefit of  Koch Brothers who are funding the Republicans, on a scale never witnessed before, in the crucial Senate races:

“The Republican Senate candidates across the country are standing by Charles and David Koch and their reckless agenda that hurts women and their families while benefiting billionaires like the Kochs. By supporting this reckless ‘Koch budget’, GOP Senate candidates are jeopardizing economic security and health care rights for women and their children while providing tax giveaways for millionaires. Republican Senate Candidates are sending a message loud and clear to the women of their States: if elected they would put special interests like the Koch brothers first not women and middle-class families.”

OBAMACARE AND ECONOMIC EQUALITY

All this focus on the AHCA  and having to go on the defensive on the act was not what the Republicans had planned. (Blog; The GOP wins in 2014? - It is the Plutocrats, Obamacare and Voter Suppression - Stupid). The Republicans did not want to have defend anything specific and that is what our “Ryanstone Cowboy” has opened the door to. They did not want examples of their economic plan to defend nor answer any specifics on Obamacare they just wanted a debate about the evils of Obamacare per se and in general that Obama’s socialist policies were putting the country into ruin.The Republicans wanted a generic attack on “big government and collectivism” not to debate single issues. It is thus not surprising that they have once again delayed rolling out their own healthcare plan and Boehner has gone ballistic about supporting certain provisions of Obamacare - it is the Act nothing but the whole act that must go!

The whole thrust of the Democratic 2014 campaign to date had been economic inequality and avoiding AHCA. Now they can run with Obamacare and focus on the very features Ryan maintains “The Givers” cannot afford to pay taxes for!

RYAN’S RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND POPE FRANCIS

Under normal circumstances, normal that is since Kennedy was elected in the early sixties, a candidate’s religious beliefs do not largely enter into the equation in Presidential elections. Ryan has borne his religion as a badge of honor thus far with a neutral impact. Forty percent of Americans are Catholics and obviously they are of all political persuasions. (The number has been given a boost by the Latinos). Until Pope Francis came onto the scene there was a lethargy among American Catholics. Also there were no direct Catholic political overtones, rather general statements about helping the poor and the like. Now the successor to the Apostle Paul has said that trickle down economics does not work and income equality is the world’s greatest challenge!

Pope Francis has injected a new life into the Church in the USA. He is humble, walks the walk and desires to rid the Church of it’s bureaucratic domination  and put the scandals and cronyism behind him. But most importantly his number one agenda coincides with that of Obama - income inequality. They both believe it is the issue of our time. There is only one issue that Ryan and the Pope are ad idem with and that is contraception, and that is the one issue 99% of the American women disagree with the Pontiff on. Whether or not the new social policies of this popular pope will be a factor, consciously or unconsciously, remains to be seen. The inescapable fact however is that the  Republican Party economic policy is in direct odds with the new Pontiff’s number one priority.

I am sure certain Republicans would like to tell the Pope to butt out and quit supporting the Democrats’ talking points but no - one is that foolish. Ryan as a potential candidate could be the respondent of some very uncomfortable questions as to his attitude towards the Pope Francis’s agenda.

RYAN  AND THE GOP FROM HERE ON

Paul Ryan will be front and central in this campaign as he has enunciated in clear detail what the position of the Republican Party is on “inequality”, the very topic that the Democrats wanted to fight this election on. The dynamic has changed. Whether or not this wins him the Republican nomination he so desperately craves is moot. He is not out of it. His intellect, honesty and his right wing philosophy is where the base is at. Maybe the Koch brothers will back him. His budget has been attacked as being the Koch Budget and he is certainly the pick of Sheldon’s “crazies”. However, he is unlikely to be the Establishment’s choice.

At the end of the day Ryan and the Republicans are going to have to learn as individuals and as a Party,  to, in the words of Greg Campbell’s Rhinestone Cowboy:

“There will be a load of compromisin’

               On the road to my horizon…”

               

Otherwise all the money in the world and all the voter suppression will not see a GOP appearance at a “Star - spangled rodeo”. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Democrats are already on the media waves and internet making hay of  “The Ryanstone Cowboy’s” budget. The latter has increased the number of small donors dramatically in the last few days.

This mid term election is going to be an ugly affair. The Republicans, their Plutocrats and their unelected media and institutional leaders are going to throw every conceivable thing at it including the gold kitchen sink with its diamond taps. Voter suppression is a top Republican priority, now, in 19 states. They would like to demolish the Democrats while the GOP are still ostensibly a unified Party. If they don’t the Party must finally split and the Democrat philosophy will become as enshrined as much as FDR’s Great Society did. 

The nightmare of 8 years of Hillary and Democratic Congressional majorities is enough to spur the GOP into to trying anything - even not stopping “The Ryanstone Cowboy” from reintroducing his budget.