RYAN: "He's more like a circus barker with a tie."
Ryan is a very lively appealing speaker who successfully strings together cliches that are basically a rehash of GOP talking points. His economic analysis, such as it is, basically assumes as fact, the faulty premises of trickle down, supply side, anti-tax orthodoxy. So "everybody knows" that low taxes lead to growth. Everybody knows that Obama's policies will lead to hyper inflation. And for good measure let's throw in Galtian concepts about the business leaders who are responsible for prosperity.
He strings this together in a rapid fire patter that leaves you breathless. Only after a 30 second rest, do you realize that all his pontificating is really thin gruel. I geniuinely believe, though, that his speaking style -- articulate, highfalutin' sounding, engaging and earnest -- is why so many VSP's believe that this guy is an intellectual force to be reckoned with. Of course that's wrong. He's more like a circus barker with a tie.
Paul Krugman likes to refer to the old characterization of Newt Gingrich as a dumb person's idea of an intellectual. The same can be said about Ryan.
That said, he is a very engaging speaker who really wound up the crowd that was in the room that night. This was a definitve country club Republican crowd, not the red meat social values Republicans that Thomas Frank described so brilliantly in What's the Matter with Kansas. But my take away from that night was that if you are still in the GOP now, you have become a red meat Repbulican. The men in blue blazers and the women in pearls all lapped up Ryan's hard right orthodoxy. Because he was among friends, Ryan made a borderline rascist double entendre or two, and certainly had no problem calling Obama a socialist.
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/11/1118849/-I-heard-Ryan-Speak-at-a-GOP-Fundraiser
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