Paul Ryan Poll

[DaShi]

The important difference between Romney and Huntsman is that Romney is willing to lie consummately to get elected, which is why I supported him in the primary.

You are easily manipulated.

[kentonio]

I'm genuinely curious. What is the substantive difference between Huntsman and Romney?

Huntsman governed a state that under his tenure was named 'Best managed state in America'. Huntsman left office with an approval rate over 80%. Huntsman crossed party lines to serve under a Democrat administration because helping America actually mattered to him. In Utah he lowered major taxes but raised or tried to raise taxes on things like motor vehicles and cigarettes. He supported climate change and raising the minimum wage and cut regulation in areas that actually had too high regulation.

Basically he's a moderate conservative with generally reasonable positions who is willing to compromise and work with others to arrive at solutions that help Americans. All these things differentiate him from Mitt Romney. Oh and he's also a nice guy who has charisma and doesn't act like poor folk are a different species. This also helps.

Hunstman certainly has positions that I would disagree with, but that's ok, that's how things go in a democracy when the candidates are moderate and reasonable. It's only when politics becomes a partisan war that people start coming out with things like 'You're either with us or against us' and the rest of the playground bull****.

[DinoDoc]

This has to be the first time I've heard Romney described as a hardline right winger.

[DaShi]

Depends on who Romney is talking to at the moment.

[kentonio]

This has to be the first time I've heard Romney described as a hardline right winger.

DaShi hits the nail squarely on the head. It's not that Romney is a hardline right winger, its just that he's an unprincipled corporate whore, who will sell out to whatever interests offer him the greatest reward at any time. To give him a chance of the white house he had to sell out to the corporate interests and to the hard right and he did it without blinking. He's completely dishonest and a genuinely unpleasant person.

[regexcellent]

You are easily manipulated.

What I mean is that his ability to lie, I believe, is crucial to winning the general election, and electability to me was more important than any other issue. Not that the primary mattered in my state; obviously Huntsman dropped out way before I had a chance to vote.

[DaShi]

I'm sorry. The tone of that statement was lost. Perhaps I should have added a "Well" to the beginning of it.

[Hauldren Collider]

Awkward: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/20...ll-back-chains

Biden to Southern audience: Romney financial plan would ‘put y’all back in chains’

Vice President Biden drew a tough retort from Mitt Romney's campaign Tuesday after telling a Virginia audience that the Republican presidential candidate's plan to lift financial regulation would "put y'all back in chains."

Romney's campaign responded by claiming the rhetoric marked a "new low" in the 2012 race.

Biden made the remarks during a stop in Danville, Va. He took a swipe at Romney's plan to ease financial regulations, by recycling a Romney bank analogy and creating an analogy of his own.

"He said in the first 100 days, he's going to let the big banks once again write their own rules," Biden said. "Unchain Wall Street! They're gonna put y'all back in chains."

The remark's context is unclear. Some conservative blogs claimed Biden had just made a reference to slavery. Danville, aside from being the last capital of the Confederacy, is racially split -- the city is nearly half black and half white. The crowd at Tuesday's event reflected that makeup.

Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul fired back at Biden after the event, without accusing Biden of any racial reference.

"After weeks of slanderous and baseless accusations leveled against Governor Romney, the Obama campaign has reached a new low," she said. "The comments made by the vice president of the United States are not acceptable in our political discourse and demonstrate yet again that the Obama campaign will say and do anything to win this election. President Obama should tell the American people whether he agrees with Joe Biden's comments."

The Obama campaign, though, likened the language Biden used to language used repeatedly by GOP officials.

"For months, Speaker Boehner, Congressman Ryan and other Republicans have called for the 'unshackling' of the private sector from regulations that protect Americans from risky financial deals and other reckless behavior that crashed our economy," Stephanie Cutter, deputy campaign manager, said in a statement. "Since then, the vice president has often used a similar metaphor to describe the need to 'unshackle' the middle class.

"Today's comments were a derivative of those remarks, describing the devastating impact letting Wall Street write its own rules again would have on middle class families. We find the Romney campaign's outrage over the vice president's comments today hypocritical, particularly in light of their own candidate's stump speech questioning the president's patriotism. Now, let's return to that 'substantive' debate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan promised 72 hours ago, but quickly abandoned."

Biden on Tuesday was specifically talking about the plank of Romney's economic plan that calls for easing restrictions on financial institutions put in place when the Dodd-Frank banking overhaul took effect in 2010.

Biden didn't limit his attacks to the nation's finances Tuesday.

He continued to jab Romney for only releasing two years of tax returns, again noting the practice of providing more information that was started by Romney's father during his presidential bid.

"And how many people think you can run for president of the United States and not let the American people know what your tax returns are?" Biden asked the audience.

"This is not your father's Republican Party. ... This is not even Mitt Romney's father's Republican Party."

Biden also said Romney's plan to repeal the health care overhaul would take the country back to a time when being a woman is a "pre-existing condition."

That line of attack was teed up by former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Va., who warmed up a vocal crowd by equating Romney's running mate Paul Ryan with an unpopular Congress.

"Paul Ryan's Congress that wants to take us back to where being a woman is a pre-existing condition," he said. Perriello represented Virginia's 5th District and was swept out of office in the 2010 midterm election that saw Republicans take control of the House of Representatives.

The attacks came in a town situated near the border of two neighboring swing states, North Carolina and Virginia. Obama won both in 2008 and they are crucial to this year's race.

Though Danville is north of the border in Virginia, Biden seemed to think he was in the Tarheel State as he wrapped up his remarks.

"With you, and I mean this, with you, we can win North Carolina and if we do, we win the election again with you," Biden said.

I actually think the last part is funnier than the "in chains" part...

I also like how they have to find a former congressmen who lost his election to back Obama up in Virginia. Except for Tim Kaine I guess.

[DaShi]

Yeah, I'm surprised that the republicans are harping about this. It makes them look like...well, Kerry.

[dannubis]

You think they oppose Obama because he's black? Why can't they oppose him because they disagree with his values?

[kentonio]

Quick reminder of why people like Paul Ryan are ****s.

Medicaid Expansion Rejected By Governors Who Say Earning $11,000 Is Too Much

MIAMI — Sandra Pico is poor, but not poor enough.

She makes about $15,000 a year, supporting her daughter and unemployed husband. She thought she'd be able to get health insurance after the Supreme Court upheld President Barack Obama's health care law.

Then she heard that her own governor won't agree to the federal plan to extend Medicaid coverage to people like her in two years. So she expects to remain uninsured, struggling to pay for her blood pressure medicine.

"You fall through the cracks and there's nothing you can do about it," said the 52-year-old home health aide. "It makes me feel like garbage, like the American dream, my dream in my homeland is not being accomplished."

Many working parents like Pico are below the federal poverty line but don't qualify for Medicaid, a decades-old state-federal insurance program. That's especially true in states where conservative governors say they'll reject the Medicaid expansion under Obama's health law.

In South Carolina, a yearly income of $16,900 is too much for Medicaid for a family of three. In Florida, $11,000 a year is too much. In Mississippi, $8,200 a year is too much. In Louisiana and Texas, earning more than just $5,000 a year makes you ineligible for Medicaid.

Governors in those five states have said they'll reject the Medicaid expansion underpinning Obama's health law after the Supreme Court's decision gave states that option. They favor small government and say they can't afford the added cost to their states even if it's delayed by several years. Some states estimate the expansion could ultimately cost them a billion dollars a year or more.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...p_ref=politics

[Ben Kenobi]

after the Supreme Court upheld President Barack Obama's health care law.

Yet another win for Obamacare

Good to see you earning your conservative stripes, Kentonio.

[kentonio]

Yet another win for Obamacare

Good to see you earning your conservative stripes, Kentonio.

How does that even make any sense? Obamacare tries to help people like this, and certain states refuse to go along with it. Your comment (predictably) makes literally no sense.

[DinoDoc]

Quick reminder of why people like Paul Ryan are ****s.

Because they can't afford generosity imposed on them by others?

[kentonio]

Because they can't afford generosity imposed on them by others?

Yeah, that's definitely why..

The federal government will pay the full cost of the Medicaid expansion through 2016. After that, the states will pick up 5 percent of the cost through 2019, and 10 percent of the cost thereafter.