Paul Ryan: President of the United States (2020)

(My thoughts about Congressman Paul Ryan the Republican Vice-Presidential Candidate.)

Mitt Romney & Paul Ryan (2012)

I went out last Friday night. Came back really late and found myself next morning on the couch with the TV blaring. Then I heard the unthinkable.

“Today is a good day for Americans, and the better days ahead. Join me, …… ,join me, in welcoming the next president of United States, Paul Ryan!”

Jesus Christ, the voice was Mitt Romeny’s, the Republican Presidential Candidate, and he was introducing his surprise VP pick. Right beside the grey Navy-Battleship Wisconsin decommissioned and retired at the naval museum, in Norfolk, Virginia.

The TV cameras then moved up to the deck of USS Wisconsin and there he was. Familiar lanky frame of Paul Ryan almost running down energetically the flag-adorned gangway of the old battleship.

That made my day! 

Mitt Romney’s Stalling Presidential Campaign?

Mormon Missionaries on their bikes.

As a Burmese-Australian I do not know much about American Politics, but recently I’ve been involuntarily following the 2012 Presidential Campaign while I am temporarily in New York for my business. I can’t avoid being sucked into the presidential-election’s excitement here in US as every cable station is saturated with campaign ads and news while every broadsheet is filled with campaign news and op-ed articles.

From whatever I gathered from the papers and TVs the Mitt Romeny’s campaign seemed to be faltering recently. Obama’s negative ads capitalizing on young Mitt Romney’s substantial time at the Bain Capital, the investment bank Obama’s camp wanted the fellow Americans to believe as the outsourcing expert who has been closing down so many American factories and sending the American jobs overseas, is seriously corroding the enemy position as cleverly intended.

Then the Democrats' nasty attacks on Mitt Romney's not publicly disclosing his recent tax returns by accusing him of paying very little or no taxes at all.

Personally I was a bit disappointed by the nomination of Mitt Romney a Mormon as the 2012 Presidential Candidate for Republicans. A Mormon for President of the United States, the most powerful position on this planet?

Whenever I hear or read about Mormons I have in my mind the images of the pairs of young men in tiled shirts standing at the street corners in the City of Sydney spreading the message of their Mormon god to the non-believers, and Sydney’s infamous Rugby League fingerman Hopoate.

Hopoate Senior & Junior.

His young son Hopoate Junior was the schoolmate of my kids when they were at the primary school in Sydney’s Northern Beaches. The whole family originally from Tonga are serious Mormons and the young Hopoate Junior even took a year off from his very successful Rugby League career and went on his overseas missionary trip like many other young Mormon men do.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with being a Mormon, but I still wonder if a Mormon is ever good enough to become the president of the United States. I don’t mind the US President being a mainstream Catholic or a Protestant Christian but a Mormon from a fringe religion with PR problems? To say the truth I don’t even know what Mormon really is.

Then there is another problem with Mitt Romney. Lack of serious policy issues. He’s been running the election campaign as the referendum on Obama’s seemingly failing policies. Like what John Howard did successfully against our seemingly arrogant PM the great Paul Keating the so-called visionary in 1996 General Elections. Will it be just good enough to topple still-immensely-popular Barrack Obama?

Now comes the Congressman known as the intellectual Republican and the conservative theologian alive to rescue our Mitt Romney from his faltering presidential campaign just in time.

Paul Ryan: The Free-Market Fundamentalist

Paul Ryan the 2012 VP candidate (Republican).

Even though Paul Ryan was initially treated as an almost-unknown figure by most mainstream media here in US many people all over the world, who are conservatives or conservative-leaning like for instance I am, know Paul Ryan the young Congressman and the present Chairman of House Budget Committee quite well.

He is well-known all over the world for his expertise of US budget, an enormous political hot potato, and his detailed alternative to Obama’s Budget, and his controversial plane to reshape US Medicare, and his conservative Road Map to rescue America from becoming a European style Socialist country.

As a wannabe-Conservative even though I was a born-Communist I was thrilled after reading all about him over last few years but I still did not know much about Paul Ryan the man. Then last Tuesday or Wednesday I managed to buy the New Yorker (6 August 2012 issue) and found the feature article was all about him.

The article was titled “How Paul Ryan Captured the G.O.P. (Grand Old Party) – on a free-market fundamentalist’s rise” and written by the magazine’s Washington Man Ryan Lizza.

(To be continued……..)

Related Posts at Following Links:
Paul Ryan: The Free-Market Fundamentalist (2012)