Why Does The DCCC Protect Paul Ryan?

In most ways Paul Ryan is just another garden variety Republican Party hack and fraud. Taking more money from the Finance sector than any other Wisconsin congressman in history, he helped John Boehner twist enough arms to pass Bush's no-strings-attached Wall Street TARP bailout after it was voted down September 29, 2008. Note at that link Ryan was one of 65 Republicans to back the bailout on that day. The following week, with Bush's economic team demanding a re-vote, the lazy, distracted and drunk Boehner tasked Ryan with rounding up enough Republicans to pass the unpopular legislation. Ryan did well for his Wall Street paymasters, delivering another two dozen reluctant GOP votes to pass an even worse version of the bill on October 3!

Ryan is Wall Street's boy. He has been nurtured and supported-- just the way they have nurtured and supported other politicians with an easy sense of ethics and oversized ambitions-- from two-bit crooks-on-the-make on the Democratic side of the aisle like Rahm Emanuel and Harold Ford to GOP sell-outs regarded as the party's up-and-comers like Eric Cantor, Mark Kirk, Roy Blunt, John Boehner, and Mike Castle. These are the politicians Wall Street pumps millions of dollars into as long term investments.

I've long been curious about why the DCCC has such a strict hands-off policy when it comes to Ryan. Despite being in a basically Democratic district-- Obama beat McCain 51-48%-- filled with successful local Democratic politicians, Ryan has never had a serious challenge and the DCCC has undermined whatever Democratic opposition to Wall Street's favorite up-and-comer. Odd, isn't it? Kind of the same way they always protect John Boehner. Of course, if you have to ask who's side the DCCC is on, you probably don't read DWT much.

This week A.P. published a little noticed spread on Ryan that discusses how odd it is that a corporate shill like him is able to hoodwink Democrats, without mentioning how odd it is that he also hoodwinks teabaggers, who have been unkind elsewhere towards such overtly Wall Street-owned politicians, especially the ones who have voted for Bush's TARP bailout. Kenosha, they point out, is a "union-heavy city suffering from high unemployment [that] should be hostile territory for any Republican-- especially one promising to slash spending and reform sacred entitlement programs." Neither Kenosha nor Racine are exactly hotbeds of Ryan support, but too many Democrats and independents in those cities have been taken in, largely because of the strict DCCC hands-off policy-- to make it easy for him to turn his support in the suburbs and exurbs into a winning formula year after year and set him up as a likely nominee for higher office.

Ryan, the ranking Republican member on the House Budget committee, is a self-described conservative fascinated with economic issues. At town hall meetings this month, he started with a wonkish 15-minute powerpoint presentation with charts that warned of a coming "tidal wave of debt." He pitched his plan, "A Roadmap for America's Future," which would overhaul Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, as the solution.

The plan has made him a conservative star, gaining prominence as an alternative to what Republicans call President Barack Obama's brand of big government liberalism. He says his ideas are the antithesis of Obama's and a direct repudiation of progressivism, the movement pioneered in Wisconsin a century ago.

...Ryan says he plans to use his political action committee to donate up to 50 candidates running for Congress this cycle. He is one of the founders of the Republican "Young Guns" program that identifies viable candidates and seeks to channel support their way.

Ryan, 40, would become chairman of the budget committee if Republicans win control in November and he is promising "a shock and awe campaign to go after spending." He said Republicans must not "buckle in the knees when it's time to cut spending" like they did the last time they held the majority.

Ryan can focus on the national picture because he is expected to breeze to re-election, like he has more or less every cycle since first winning election in 1998 at age 28. He calls the southeastern Wisconsin district "a perfect cross section of America" that includes inner city areas, suburbs, rural areas and manufacturing towns.

DWT's man of the ground in southeast Wisconsin, Dave Sherbula, has also noticed that national Democrats don't do squat to take out Ryan.

"I try not to meddle in local politics, but you've got a Milwaukee mayor who might make a really good governor."

Quote President Obama at his Racine, WI Town Hall style appearance. 

WTF? All politics is local. You are the standard bearer of your party. It is your job to meddle, twist arms and force feed your opponents everything they oppose. That's why we elected you. To stand up for the people who elected you. You know, local people.

Against the likes of Rep. Darth Ryan. And the millionaire challenger to Sen. Feingold who runs ads saying that all the government does is create debt. Milwaukee Journal:

The road into downtown Racine was lined with signs that read, "Thank you Mr. President for seeing us through hard times," and "We're praying for you, Mr. President."

Another read, "Help bring our jobs back home," a reminder that the city lives with a 14.2% unemployment rate. The only city with a higher jobless rate in Wisconsin is Beloit, at 15.8%, not far from the General Motors plant in Janesville that closed in December 2008.

This is not a time to compromise. This the time to take bold action. Stand up to the likes of Darth Ryan and call him out on his lies. This country can sustain this deficit if we get people working again.  Social Security is not going broke. And we have to support manufacturing in this country, not banking.  

To his credit on this trip, President Obama stepped in to overturn a decision by a U.S. Government financing arm that will allow South Milwaukee based Bucyrus to sell mining equipment to India keeping and creating about a thousand jobs in the U.S.

During times of crisis in this country leaders have had to take bold action. This is one of those times. During WWII our parents sacrificed and rallied around the cause of defeating an enemy. 

Today that enemy is this economy. President Obama you need to lead forcefully. Spend money. Tell every one in the world to buy American products. Make it attractive to do so and make it to prohibitively expensive to move manufacturing plants overseas.

President Obama, wouldn't you rather be a one term winner, than a two term loser?

(AKA G.W. Bush)

Blue America has a page, Stop Paul Ryan, dedicated to defeating Ryan and replacing him with a stalwart grassroots progressive Paulette Garin. The DCCC loves sending out press releases about how horrible Ryan's reactionary ideas are but they haven't put a nickel into defeating him and, in fact, spend an enormous percentage of the donations they get from unsuspecting Democrats on backing conservatives who vote for the kind of blame-the-poor economic policies that Ryan-- and the Blue Dogs-- push.