What if Romney had had the balls...

In Ryan's plan, nothing will change for those 55 and older.

Eugene Robinson/Washington Post

Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate underscores the central question posed by this campaign: Should cold selfishness become the template for our society, or do we still believe in community?

Romney wanted the election to be seen as a referendum on the success or failure of President Obama’s economic policies. Instead, he has revealed that the campaign is really a choice between two starkly different philosophies. One could be summed up as: “We’re all in this together.” The other: “I’ve got mine.”

This is not about free enterprise, and it’s not about personal liberty; those fundamental principles are unquestioned. But for at least the past 100 years, we have understood capitalism and freedom to exist within a larger context — a complicated, real-world, human context. Some people begin life at a disadvantage, and it’s in the national interest to open doors of opportunity for them. Some people make mistakes, and it’s in the national interest to create second chances. Some people are too young, too old or too infirm to care for themselves, and it’s in the national interest to secure their welfare.

This sense of the balance between individualism and community fueled the American Century.

Romney and Ryan apparently don’t believe in it.

It is well known that Ryan, at least for most of his career, has been enamored of the ideas of Ayn Rand, the novelist (“Atlas Shrugged,” “The Fountainhead”) whose interminable books tout self-interest as the highest, noblest human calling and equate capitalist success with moral virtue. Ryan now disavows Rand’s worldview, primarily because she was an atheist, but he lavishly praised her ideas as recently as 2009.

What about Romney? While he has never pledged allegiance to the Cult of Rand, his view of society seems basically the same.

At least three times in recent days, as part of his response to President Obama’s “You didn’t build that” peroration, Romney has told campaign audiences variations of the following: “When a young person makes the honor roll, I know he took a school bus to get to the school, but I don’t give the bus driver credit for the honor roll.”

When he delivered that line in Manassas on Saturday with Ryan in tow, Romney drew wild applause.

He went on to say that a person who gets a promotion and raise at work, and who commutes to the office by car, doesn’t owe anything to the clerk at the motor vehicles department who processes driver’s licenses.

What I hear Romney saying, and I suspect many others will also hear, is that the little people don’t contribute and don’t count.

I don’t know whether Romney’s sons ever rode the bus to school. I do know that for most parents, it matters greatly who picks up their children in the morning and drops them off in the afternoon.

It may not be the driver’s job to help with algebra homework, but he or she bears enormous responsibility for safely handling the most precious cargo imaginable. A good bus driver gets to know the children, maintains order and discipline, deals with harassment and bullying. Romney may not realize it, but a good driver plays an important role in ensuring a child’s physical and emotional well-being — and may, in fact, be the first adult to whom the child proudly displays a report card with all A’s.

School bus drivers don’t make a lot of money. Nor, for that matter, do the clerks who help keep unqualified drivers and unsafe vehicles off the streets. But these workers are not mere cogs in a machine designed to service those who make more money. They are part of a community.

The same is true of teachers, police officers, firefighters and others whom Romney and Ryan dismiss as minions of “big government” rather than public servants.

And what do the Republicans offer their supposed heroes, the entrepreneurs who start small businesses? The few who succeed wildly would be rewarded with tax cuts so huge that they, like Romney, might one day have a dressage horse competing in the Olympics. Most of those who just manage to scrape by, or whose businesses fail, could look forward to only as much health care in their senior years as they are able to afford, and not one bit more.

This is a campaign Democrats should relish. The United States became the world’s dominant economic, political and military power by recognizing that we are all in this together. School bus drivers, too.

Heck, everybody who has a job should believe in "community" over "I got mine - go screw yourself!"

I just don't understand those people who support the likes of Romney and Ryan who will work to destroy the middle class for sure.

Medicare voucher system, and cuts in social security for all!

What's so confusing?

Obama seems to have done pretty well for himself as a moderate. Clinton before him did pretty well.

(If you don't think Obama and Clinton are moderates, than you don't know very much.)

Compared to who?

Compared to all the liberals and conservatives; they are "moderates."

Compared to the American electorate.

Obama holds positions that are to the right of a significant number of Americans on issues from gun rights, to defense and national security to welfare and health care. Many liberal Americans are upset with his compromise on healthcare (not fighting for single payer) and his continued use of military force in the name of national security.

Obama is slightly left of center, but he isn't that far from center based on what we Americans believe as a whole.

It might help you to understand this if you understand that the Tea Party is not at all representative of the nation at large.

Untill they and a republican congress are elected than hold on to your ass. Remember Bush!

The Republicans will win the House and possibly the Senate. As it looks now, according to Nate Silver who writes the FiveThiryEight blog, it probably will be 50 R--49D and 1 Independent; Angus King of Maine. But the Senate is too iffy so it could go either way. A lot can happen between now and election day.

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