Paul Ryan

So, the big non-Olympic news of the last week is that Mitt Romney has chosen his running mate: Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Ryan is young, bright, articulate and handsome, and is widely known as the architect of the House Republicans budget plan. He was chosen over a number of other candidates, and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida seemed to be the most likely alternative.

For some background, Romney seems to have been sliding in the polls a bit lately. A month ago, the race looked to be tied, and now he seems to be behind by 4-8 points. Given the consistently atrocious economic news from here and from abroad, he should have been able to at least hold steady during that time, and probably should have been making some gains. His slipping is a pretty clear sign that whatever message they were delivering all summer was not working.

As a side note, the campaigns and the pundits are reading WAY too much into those polls. There is no way on earth that the race was ever really tied, and it defies all logic that Obama magically pulled ahead by a huge margin during a time period when all of the news was bad for him and no one really pays much attention anyway. Just plain common sense should tell you that Obama has probably been ahead by 2-4 points the whole time. But, I suppose they have to do something for the summer, and overreacting is their only choice...

But I think this guided Romney's VP pick. Generally, a candidate can go a number of different directions with their VP selection. They can try to pick someone who is similar to them in order to re-enforce an image (like Clinton did with Gore in 1992). Or, they can try and pick someone who is viewed as strong in an area that the candidate is weak (like Obama did with Biden in 2008). Often there are those who think a VP can help turn a swing state, although there isn't much evidence that this actually works. Sometimes, a campaign is just lost, so they pick the craziest VP they can in hopes of shaking up the race (which is how we all met Sarah Palin).

I think Romney has gone a different way...he has picked someone who is heavily associated with an issue in hopes of driving the debate towards that issue. He is appeasing his base, and Wisconsin is maybe (in a very broad definition) a contested state, but I really feel like the primary purpose was drawing Obama into a discussion about the budget.

In that sense, I love the selection. Not that I necessarily love Ryan or think his budget proposal is much better than Obama's, but to me this should be the issue, and it constantly baffles me that young people so blatantly ignore it. I certainly understand why none of the other candidates appeal to people under 35 or so, but it consistently puzzles me how Obama can remain so incredibly popular after basically telling us to go and fuck ourselves for four years.

I can promise you that the budget discussion will be ill-informed, misleading and full of half-truths and blatant lies...but I am all for anything that ensures that we at least have the discussion. Just as a heads up, Obama is going to tell you that we can solve all of our problem by "asking the very richest Americans to pay their fair share." Which is only mostly a lie because he doesn't define what is "their fair share" is...otherwise it would be totally a lie. Ryan (and by extension Romney) is going to tell you that we can solve our problems by cutting taxes further and making some minor tweaks to Medicare and Social Security that won't really require anyone to sacrifice. I probably don't really need to explain the idiocy of that.

One thing is for sure, none of them are going to actually tell us the truth: the fiscal management of the Federal budget has been so bad that we can not even stop the accumulation of new debt without substantial new tax revenues and substantial spending cuts. And not just taxes on "the top 1%", and not just cuts in "wasteful government programs". No, everyone is paying more, and everything is getting cut.

But I will take a bad debate over no debate for now, and for that reason, I am glad that Ryan will be in the race. His proposals have all kinds of flaws, and all kinds of absurd assumptions...but he is at least willing to put his ideas on paper and talk about that. Just being willing to move the discussion forward makes him better than most.

So, short version...I like Ryan, but I don't really love him and I have a LOT of issues with his grand plan. I suppose it shows well on Romney that he is willing to pick someone how may upstage him at times. But mostly, I think he will be a welcome addition to the race, and that we will all be better off for having talked about the things that he is going to make them all talk about.

In my next life, I wanna be able to wear a field hockey uniform in public

I feel like I owe you a lot of catch-up, since I have blogged only once or twice since before we left on our college-hunting trip. A number of you have asked about further information regarding Frenchie's college plans, which I think I have limited to "He is probably coming to the States." So, yes...he is almost certainly coming here for college, which is a pretty big leap for an 18 year old, but both he and his parents are gung-ho about it. I think they have always been proponents of the idea, and it is just slightly possible that his feelings for a particularly charming New England girl have brought him around to their way of thinking.

His father works, after a fashion, in the defense and aerospace industry, and as such he spends considerable time in Washington, DC (like...I'd say two or three trips a year, at least.) Because of that, being close to DC has a certain appeal to it, and I have long suspected that he may end up at a certain esteemed institution that you might assume derives its name from the first name of our first (and greatest...yea, I said it!) President, but is in fact named after an area that likely takes its name from either an 18th century tobacco merchant or a King of England.

I still think that this is the most likely place he will end up, and it was on our tour last week. Frankly, Munchkin really loved the school, and I did, too. Not enough to leave Boston for, but it may well have been her favorite non-local school. Funny thing, though...I think she would have liked it more if he wasn't going to go there. She seems to not like the idea that she might be picking a place because that is where he is going. Again, I am not totally sure how her thought process would work if she was really thinking about these schools, but that was my gut feeling.

Speaking of Frenchie...he has been here for a week and is headed back home tonight. They were here for a couple of days, then headed to the beach for a bit, and have been back since Saturday afternoon. There are some differences in the relationship that I don't want to go into here, but they had another great visit and will probably start counting down the days until the next one soon (probably Christmas?)

And speaking of "counting down the days"... one week 'til Tinkerbelle! I feel like I haven't seen her in forever (it was New Year's) and since she never got out here either of the last two summers, this will be her first trip to the beach in three years. I am pretty sure she is taller than me;-) and almost certainly has bigger boobs, too. She is, after all, 13...and most 13 year old girls can yes to both of those.

I think I will take some time off, although I don't know whether it will be the whole week or not. I may work like two days, give her some time to herself, and then plan on spending the rest of the time at the beach with her. Chances of me getting a single picture with both sisters and both daughters? Hmm...maybe a possibility...

All of this, and I haven't even gotten to either an Olympic round-up (I love the Olympics, I think we all know that) or a discussion of Mitt Romney picking a VP candidate...maybe I will blog more than once this week!

More babies!!!

Not sure what she tried to make it happen, but Big Sis woke up this morning in labor, headed to the hospital and had herself a baby girl at 1:14 this afternoon:-) She is so awesome that she gets two middle names...Aunt Smoking Hot Roommate's first and middle name (which is also my name, of course!), along with Big Sis's maiden name (which is also her brother's middle name). Which actually means that her first and two middle names are Smoking Hot Roommate's full, pre-married name.

If you followed that, then congrats...:-)

Anyway, Mom, Dad and Big Brother are doing great and I can't wait to meet the little princess!

Baby updates!!!

Somehow in my traveling, non-blogging and general awesomeness, I forgot to mention that I have a brand new niece:-) Twin Sister and her Wife had another little baby girl last weekend, right before Munchkin and I left. We got to see her on Sunday night before taking off on Monday:-)

Ten fingers, ten toes and seven pounds of absolute adorableness! Baby, Mommy, other Mommy and big sister are all doing great. She hasn't met her cousins just yet, but I think we will bring them over to meet her sometime early next week...

Big Sis, however, remains stubbornly still pregnant!

Tales from the highway

I'm back...from four days on the road, one day of work, and then a couple more days at the beach:-) All in all, it's not a bad way to live!!!

I can't begin to tell you how much fun Munchkin and I had. We left Monday morning, drove to Providence and then to New Haven (what, you need me to spell out the schools for you? C'mon...you are all better than that...) and spent the night in New York city. We saw two places in New York on Tuesday, stayed there again that night and then headed further south to Northern New Jersey on Wednesday morning, Philadelphia Wednesday afternoon and then stayed in DC that night, saw one school there and drove back on Thursday.

Along the way, we ate an enormous amount of junk food (although we didn't eat at any Chick-fil-A's...honestly, we were afraid of making a political statement and didn't really know which political statement we would be making by eating there. Thankfully, McDonald's has remained silent on all major social issues...) We also listened to a huge amount of terrible music, and sang entirely too much of it out loud. We almost certainly went over on the Demi Lovato allowance...

And we talked a lot, of course, about a million things...some silly and some serious. Frenchie is here for a week now, so she was thinking about that leading up to his visit. Her feelings about him are as deep as they have ever been, but I think they are getting more complicated as they both get a little bit older. It still breaks my heart just a little bit that she sees him as little as she does...she deserves to have a simpler boyfriend situation.

She didn't see anything that changed her mind about her college plans, although she definitely liked some of the schools more than others. I am not sure she really went in with an "open mind" in the normal sense, but she listened and asked questions and looked around with interest. I am glad she did it, and I think she is, too...I will feel better about her decision knowing that she at least sampled some alternatives. Bottom line, she couldn't stand to be that far away from me...and I kinda feel the same way:-)

And now, unfortunately, I am back at work...FOR AN ENTIRE WEEK WITH NO DAYS OFF!!! What the fuck?!?!