Loose Thoughts

I'm trying to get back into the school groove.  I just want to come home every afternoon and take a nap.  I don't, though.  Then I'd be up all night.  I don't remember it taking this long to get back into the swing of things last year,though.  Oh wait.  It's only been a week.  Damn.  Seems like longer.

Since I'm too tired to come up with much original material, lets hit some links that caught my eye.

I broke faith with Peggy Noonan after she waxed rhapsodic about Obama in 2008 but she does have an interesting idea for a new Republican ad:

Republicans should do their own spot, now—one that's comic and sweet. Grandma in the wheelchair is speeding on a downward slope toward a cliff. She looks terrified. Suddenly a young guy who looks like Clark Kent—that is, like Paul Ryan—springs forward, puts his body between the wheelchair and the edge, and stops it. She looks up at him, smiles, touches his face with her hand. He smiles, turns the chair around and begins to push her back to safety. "Romney-Ryan. Trying to get things back on firm ground." 

That's pretty good, I think, except I'd change the catch line to "Romney-Ryan.  We can turn this around."   Something to that effect.  More forceful.

I like it.

Elsewhere, Bride of Rove got a giggle out of me today.  I love it when she gets on those rants:

This is embarrasing. You’ve got Biden setting new lows with the ethnic dialect and crazy-eyed babble speak. Wasserman who has no idea if Democrats are, in fact, part of the party she is in charge of, the head of the Senate accusing Romney of not paying taxes citing a rumor he heard … Holy mother of god, people! Did Romney kill his dog? Obama freaking ATE HIS DOG. 

Her overall point, of course, is that this whole election business has run off the rails and people are acting, as she would say, "sprayed roach crazy."

I can't recall ever seeing this country so polarized.  (I wasn't born during the Civil War - that might have been an exception.)  Obama's class warfare and demagoguery has divided people into the Obama camp, the Romney camp, and the I-Hate-All-Of-Them camp.  There are still some folks who are blissfully unaware of an imminent election but most of them will snap out of that soon as the airwaves become flooded with political ads.

According to the latest Rasmussen poll, about 7% are still undecided.

Speaking of polls, what's up with these polls.  I can't believe it's this close.

It's a good thing I don't pay any attention to polls.  That's damn depressing is what that is.

I can't believe anyone would consider giving this guy four more years, much less "four more beers."

Speaking of that, Politicaljunkimom has this:

This is why they’re travelling with bottles of beer: to make a rather subversive point about Romney’s Mormonism. They could do it with coffee. Or soda. But beer is the most effective way to show how “out of touch” he is while they follow the “traditional All-American home brewing” methods. 

I’m not fooled. But how many would be? What’s next, a reporter pointing out that Romney wouldn’t hold a beer summit (thank God)? Or the usual test pre-election, “With whom would you rather sit and have a beer?” would have to be hypothetical since, you know, Romney doesn’t drink. How far will the media carry this? 

Wonder if he has an Oktoberfest brew?

A friend of mine expressed concern today that there will be a Christian backlash against Romney and Mormonism.  I thought we got past all that when Kennedy was elected but maybe across the country there is still some lingering mistrust.  In this day and age where we're all supposed to be so tolerant of everything, I can't believe Romney's faith would be a big issue, but you never know, I guess.

Pretty heady stuff.  Head over to Andy's Place for a brain break.  I know Michelle Obama has been branded as the second coming of Jackie Kennedy and the epitome of style but I don't see it.  This looks like she made a dress out of the tablecloth on the picnic table.

"A renewed sense of glamour,"?  Nope.  I don't see it.

Finally, Charles Krauthammer reflect on the Paul Ryan pick:

Image. Ryan, fresh and 42, brings youth, energy and vitality — the very qualities Obama projected in 2008 and has by now depleted. “Hope and change” has become “the other guy killed a steelworker’s wife.” From transcendence to the political gutter in under four years. A new Olympic record.

In Peggy Noonan's piece, referenced above, she suggested that Romney-Ryan go against convention and campaign together as the seem to complement and balance each other.  No question that their appearances last weekend were dynamic.  I don't think they'll do it, but Ryan's presence next to Romney adds a vitality to Romney that he sometimes otherwise lacks.

More Krauthammer:

Ryan’s importance is enhanced by his identity as a movement conservative. Reagan was the first movement leader in modern times to achieve the presidency. Like him, Ryan represents a new kind of conservatism for his time. 

I think we'll be watching Paul Ryan for years to come.

And that's just fine with me!

The election is still months away and much will unfold between now and then.  The debates, for one.  That'll be interesting.

Hang in there folks.  As will I.