Romney-Ryan Can Win by Losing

It's more likely Romney won't win the Presidency, having named Paul Ryan. Ryan defines Romney, clarifies that he's not some "compassionate conservative," as W pretended to be--until he was elected.

But winning appears to be less important than changing the conversation.

Radical reactionaries won't meet the fate they did with Goldwater in 1964. Then, conservatives had neither think-tank brainpower, nor the financial power unleashed by Citizens United. Goldwater went down hard, because Democrats/progressives dominated the conversation.

It wasn't until Reagan that conservatives gained a second chance, but they won only a toehold.

The reactionary, Ayn Randian ideas of Paul Ryan are far more extreme than Reagan ever dared. They represent an aspiration to turn American political society back to the Robber Barons, before not only the New Society (Medicare-Medicaid), New Deal (Social Security, fair wages, labor union power), but even before the Anti-Trust Progressive era, when governments began to regulate and tax corporate and personal excess.

If Democrats/progressives/liberals/labor are able to get the word out, a slim majority of voters in "contested battleground states" will probably vote for Obama, and maybe even for a Democratic Congress and Senate.

That's a big if, since Ryan's name has drawn over $3 million to Republican coffers in just two days. Self-interested moneybags will mobilize to send much more--not just to the GOP, but to the so-called super-pacs, to spend on bile against Obama, or anyone to the left of Attila the Hun (I wrote Attila's autobiography, which you can buy here: http://www.amazon.com/Attila-Told-his-Scribes-ebook/dp/B00855M90G).

Still, there are ways incumbent Presidents can get the word out. But the election is only part of the story, perhaps the least likely part. Ryan is important even if he and Romney don't win: the right wing will have succeeded in shifting the conversation far to the right in their favor.

The great failure of Goldwater was that LBJ's landslide shifted political ideals and policy leftward. But with millions to billions of dollars mobilized against Obama and Democrats by Ryan's candidacy, Obama and even other Democrats might still win, but the election will probably be close.

So, the ideas put forward by Ryan and the Tea Party, will not only NOT remain unthinkable, they will become The Alternative, if nearly half the electorate supports Romney-Ryan-Republicans.

Romney has never, until now, allowed himself to be defined in policy terms: he's run away from his one signal accomplishment as Massachusetts Governor (Romneycare), but by naming Ryan, he becomes dependent upon the Tea Party and its radical corporate base: addled activists subsidized by Robber Barons.

So, today's equivalent of Fifth Century Roman Senators will attempt to control virtually all levels of government--and, of course, their own serfs. That's why they're willing to spend (100's of) millions of dollars against Obama.