Last minute election thoughts

I feel like I'm watching a really interesting football game, with every offensive thrust countered with a defensive parry.  Momentum has changed, subtle adjustments have been made, and a bit of luck has been thrown in, too.  It will likely be a field goal as the clock expires that will give us a winner.  Except this isn't a game.  This is much more serious.  This could conceivably change the way our country is governed for decades to come.  I'm talking about tomorrow's presidential and congressional elections.

Here's what has been bugging me for months now:  Mitt Romney's choice of running mate.  I've always thought of Romney as a moderate, but in the primaries he recited loud and often the Tea Party line, which scared the bejeebers out of me.  At the first debate Mitt did a complete 180, coming across as a moderate, and his fortunes improved immediately afterwards.  I'm hoping the "new" Mitt is the "real" Mitt, but in the background he's still there....his running mate, Paul Ryan, and I wonder. 

Be very afraid...the Young Gun leadership (L-R, Reps. Kevin McCarthy, Eric Cantor, and Paul Ryan)

Ryan is a proud member...a leader, even...of the Young Guns, a group of extremist, ultra-conservative Republicans who want to gain control of, first, their party, and then the country.  They have demonstrated they are willing to throw the entire country under the bus* as long as it will hasten their power grab.  (Suggested reading:  Do Not Ask What Good We Do:  Inside the US House of Representatives by Robert Draper.)  

They practice the concept of the more they can do to paralyze the country (by their obstruction) and discredit their opponents, the worse things will get and the sooner The People will turn to them to fix things.  The pain the rest of us must endure in the process is of apparently no concern to them.  To them the end justifies the means.  I agree there are lots of things that need changing, but IMO the changes need to be made thoughtfully with a scalpel, not with an ulterior motive and a meat cleaver.  All these guys have are meat cleavers.

Now I read that Paul Ryan, "quiet for now, is planning for an active role" as Romney's VP.  "...if the Republican ticket prevails, Mr. Ryan plans to come back roaring, establishing an activist vice presidency that he said would look like Dick Cheney's under President George W. Bush."  (There are to this day many loyal, moderate Republicans who cringe at that thought!)  He says he will "reach out" (to Democrats) across the aisle.  (Riiight...and pigs will fly south for the winter.  It's just not the way the Young Guns do business.)

I just hope that if Mitt Romney should win he governs like the responsible moderate our country needs, and not like a "slash and burn" Young Gun.  And as for Paul Ryan, "Vice Presidents should be seen (at funerals of foreign dignitaries) and not heard."

If you disagree, that's fine.  Just be glad we live in America where we're all free to express ourselves however we like.  :)

S

*The current budget "sequestration" mess and past (and future?) budget impasses...the work of the Young Guns.