Paul Ryan's Book Interview

[Rajoo]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/paul-rya...r-party-unity/

First:

"Ryan wrote in his new book that came out last week that he believed the Republican attempt to defund Obamacare by shutting down the government was "a suicide mission" but that too many members of his own party were unwilling to abandon the idea for fear that they would be punished by outside groups aligned with the tea party."

And then:

"I have differences with different people in the party but that's okay. I want to have a big Republican party with a big tent that gives the country a better future that can win the majority of votes in this country. We need to win the Electoral College. We need to win national elections so we can get this country on the right track. And whoever our nominee is going to be is going to need everybody's help."

How can you have a big Republican Party when you yourself did not stand up to the fringe element of your party? Or are you campaigning already and if so your first statement does not bode well.

[nailer]

Reads like posturing for a run at the White House.

[finnbow]

It's called trying to have it both ways. Not alienating the 'Bagger base while trying to capture independents - a tough and disingenuous task.

[Rajoo]

Possibly posturing for the primary. I cannot see how a person can campaign for national office by saying he put his party before the country.

[nailer]

The path to the White House runs through the Party and most of us have very short memories.

[nailer]

Originally Posted by finnbow

It's called trying to have it both ways. Not alienating the 'Bagger base while trying to capture independents - a tough and disingenuous task.

Regardless of Party, capturing the White House is a tough and disingenuous task requiring much duplicity, disambiguation, and misdirection to name but a few talents needed.

[Rajoo]

The entire congress has been voting party line anyway the last four years, so not surprising to anyone. Coming out and saying it seems too direct for a politician. I would have expected him to soft pedal it considering he was Romney's running mate.

[icenine]

It is like those small political parties in Europe and the UK who sort of want everything to go back to being white again. The Republicans have not realized yet that it is going to be impossible to win the Presidency, and as time goes on, a majority in the Congress, on just appealing to white people. Either they change their policies or they shrivel up and die. The current rigid ideology of candidates afraid of losing tea party support is sort of like a drowning man who is grasping at inflatable liferafts which have holes in them that are slowly leaking. They may keep him alive for the moment, but the sharks of diversity are swimming about ready to chomp them to death as it were.

The Liberal Party (of Gladstone) was superceded by the Labor Party in the late 30s ( I want to say 1936 but it is fuzzy) in the UK and is now the very small Democratic-Liberal sliver of Parliament keeping Cameron in his seat in a coalition with the Tories. In America the current shift away from the GOP to a new alternative may have its seeds in Rand Paul, but he keeps messing up by angering the dreamers. Someone like Paul could though peel off scores of disaffected youths (white and minority, as in Ferguson) and create a new political coalition that could spell the end of the GOP as the main alternative to the Democrats.

[Ike Bana]

Ryan, Walker, Sensenbrenner, and Duffy. The worst is Ron Johnson who has decided that any scientist who supports any human causes for climate change is "crazy." And Wisconsinites refer to where we live as "Ill-annoy".

[MrPots]

There are so many tracks, how can one man possible claim the "right track"?