Paul Ryan: the elephant in the room

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Will the GOP base vote for a plutocrat and a Randian?

Of course they will.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Will the GOP base vote for a plutocrat and a Randian?

Of course they will.

But I thought they were the party of moral values.

Ryan isn't a Randian and most people don't know who Rand is anyway.

He's cited Rand as the reason he got into politics. The Obama people could, if they choose, do a very good job of making it very clear to people exactly who Rand was.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Will the GOP base vote for a plutocrat and a Randian?

Of course they will.

But I thought they were the party of moral values.

Ryan isn't a Randian and most people don't know who Rand is anyway.

He's cited Rand as the reason he got into politics. The Obama people could, if they choose, do a very good job of making it very clear to people exactly who Rand was.

Sure he has, but he's also not espoused Ayn Rand's ideology in total. It doesn't make any sense to call him a Randian.

Arguably not, but he's more Randian than I (and I would hope I'm joined in this by many or most Americans) am comfortable with for a Vice-Presidential candidate.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Will the GOP base vote for a plutocrat and a Randian?

Of course they will.

But I thought they were the party of moral values.

Ryan isn't a Randian and most people don't know who Rand is anyway.

He's cited Rand as the reason he got into politics. The Obama people could, if they choose, do a very good job of making it very clear to people exactly who Rand was.

Sure he has, but he's also not espoused Ayn Rand's ideology in total. It doesn't make any sense to call him a Randian.

Arguably not, but he's more Randian than I (and I would hope I'm joined in this by many or most Americans) am comfortable with for a Vice-Presidential candidate.

Is it just me or does this sound exactly like the "Obama is a socialist" argument that would be rapidly eviscerated on here as a right-wing fantasy...

1. If Obama had cited some prominent socialist thinker as the reason he got into politics that would be a much more sensible line of attack.
2. There's nothing inherently unreasonable about saying that Obama's policies are closer to socialism than one is comfortable with. It's the idea that he's some sort of unreconstructed Marxist-Leninist or Eurocommunist that's prima facie absurd.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I would submit that there is a distinction between bearing no 'grudge' against the wealthy, which can be argued to indeed be virtuous on a personal level, and having no desire or seeing no need to account for the fact that they are wealthy and hence can by definition afford more when constructing public policy.