"A young Wisconsin trio could shape the direction of the GOP."

WaPo:

They all grew up in southern Wisconsin. They are close in age, ranging from late 30s to early 40s, and have known and worked with one another for many years. [Paul] Ryan and [Scott] Walker met when they were in their 20s. Ryan's chief of staff roomed with [Reince] Priebus in college.

They are not only friends but political soul mates. They share a worldview, a set of conservative values and a determination to show the country that conservative governance can solve many of the nation's problems. And in Wisconsin, they found a way to unify the party establishment with the tea party movement, avoiding many of the conflicts that occurred in other states.

It's all about Wisconsin....

"Wisconsin isn't actually the center of the universe. A convergence of events has just made it seem that way."

Writes the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

This week alone, President Barack Obama visited the state, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) gave the Republican response to the State of the Union address, and the Green Bay Packers were on the fast track to becoming America's sweethearts.

Wednesday night's "American Idol," spotlighting auditions it conducted in Milwaukee in the summer and fall of 2010, was just icing on the cake....

Performers stood in front of a blue scrim with the "Idol" logo, judges sat at the prow-like front of the [Windhover Hall of the Milwaukee Art Museum] and interviews were conducted in the museum's whalebone white hallways.

A stormy Lake Michigan was a feature throughout and could be seen dramatically changing colors and textures behind the judges....

Jennifer Lopez referred to it as "the ocean."

Hey, we were already planning to go to the Milwaukee Art Museum this weekend. So don't think, when you see my photographs, that we only went there because of "American Idol." We're going there because we're excited about seeing Masterworks of North Carolina Earthenware:

The exhibition explores, among others, work... by Moravian immigrant potters who...  found a home in the North Carolina Moravian missionary settlement. Superior in quality to the pottery the early American colonists were creating, the slip-decorated earthenware, though utilitarian, represented the religious beliefs for which their makers had once been persecuted, and allowed the settlers to maintain a sense of cultural identity in the new world.

I'm a descendant of Moravian refugees from persecution, and maybe the mysterious Meade will tell you why he's interested in the show too.

"[Obama] was then followed by a guy who was bumming us out. I felt like I just needed a drink when I was done with Paul Ryan."

Said Rep. Anthony Weiner, who found Obama's SOTU "uplifting" and Ryan's rejoinder not so much.

Now, let's think about this. He didn't need a drink after Obama's talk, but he did after Ryan's. What does that mean? Apparently, Obama's rhetoric comes with its own high, while Ryan's is more of a plain glass of water. Is Weiner interested in reality or not? I think we deserve sober Congresspeople at this point.

Paul Ryan — of Wisconsin — will give the official GOP response to Obama's State of the Union address.

The NYT reports:

In previous years, members of the minority party have turned to new, young governors to present a fresh face to the country during the brief response that is shown on television after the president’s speech. But that has not always worked.

Example given: Bobby Jindal, last year in 2009.

Instead, this year, Republicans are turning to one of their senior members who has been given broad authority by Mr. Boehner to use his new position on the budget committee to drive the Republican fiscal agenda through the House.

"Poll shows Sen. Kohl in 'solid position,' but GOP points out same was said of Sen. Feingold."

"[T]he Dec. 10-12 survey shows him with leads over potential GOP rivals Rep. Paul Ryan, former Gov. Tommy Thompson and state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen ranging from 6 to 13 points."

***

Adding tags to this post, I had to make a new one for Kohl. I've been blogging for nearly 7 years. Kohl has been one of my Senators the entire time. I never had the occasion to make a tag for him? That means something.

"Paul Ryan will need all the friends he can make."

Writes G. Tracy Mehan, III in The American Spectator:

The stakes are too high for the Republicans to simply stand by, quietly, hoping the Democrats will self-immolate. The GOP needs to embrace a big, visionary idea, something like Ryan's "Roadmap," which addresses the most important political challenge of the age: the runaway costs of entitlements which were irresponsibly put on autopilot under both Democratic and Republican governments.

"If you’re a fan of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh, try reading a few columns on the Huffington Post website. "

"It may make your blood boil; your mind may not be changed. But the practice of listening to opposing views is essential for effective citizenship."

So said Obama in his University of Michigan graduation address.

Limbaugh's response:

Now, this from the guy who said in the first month of his administration, you'll remember when I remind you, he had a meeting of Republican and Democrat congressional leaders in the White House and he looked at John Boehner, and he said, "You gotta stop listening to Rush Limbaugh. That's not how things get done in Washington."...

Now, he also said -- we don't have this on the bite -- but he did say if you're a fan of something else you should try Fox News.

What Obama said was "if you’re somebody who only reads the editorial page of The New York Times, try glancing at the page of The Wall Street Journal once in a while." He didn't mention Fox News. He's still not recommending Fox News (or Rush Limbaugh).

Back to Rush:

I mean he tried to balance this out, but the problem with it is that it's not what he does. He's as closed-minded a president as we've ever had. He doesn't listen to opposing points of views. He doesn't want to hear them. Remember the health care summit, the look on his face when Paul Ryan told the truth about health care, you could see the rage. Obama wasn't open to it. He's not open to anybody else's ideas. He may want you to think so, but he's not. What Obama doesn't understand is that you do watch other media. You do read other media. You do listen to other media. You may not do it as much because you don't trust it and like it anymore. You know the New York Times is what it is. You know that the Huffing and Puffington Post is what it is. You know what you're going to get out of TIME Magazine. I play for you on this program what they say.

The sound bites that we play on this show are primarily of people who oppose me or have opposing points of view. I'm not afraid for you to hear what they think. But here's Obama telling the students at University of Michigan Ann Arbor, "Don't be afraid, you know, you Limbaugh fans, don't be afraid." People that listen to this show know more of what Obama and the liberals are saying than people who listen to left-wing shows. We don't hide from it. And the people in this audience are not by any stretch of the imagination uninformed or ignorant about what Obama is, who he is and what he believes.

It is true. Limbaugh's show is mainly him reading or playing sound bites from the liberal media and liberal politicians and then commenting on it. The liberal commentary is always there. He's just also there showing you how to be critical of it. It's very much like blogging, where you have a political blogger who is choosing items he disagrees with and then... as we say... fisking.

"Despite claims of transparency and calls for a 'simple up-or-down vote,' there is nothing simple about this process."

Paul Ryan on the House "reconciliation" bill.

Point for Ryan? Point for Ryan?! You mean outrageous blatant lie for the Democrats!

Ezra Klein has us crying out with derision this morning:

After the Blair House Summit... Rep. Paul Ryan... says that "the true 10-year cost of this bill in 10 years" is $2.3 trillion. On this, Ryan is right, but misleading. In Ryan's favor, Democrats have artificially lowered the cost of the bill by pushing its start date back to 2014, even as its 10-year budget window begins in 2010. The 10-year cost of the bill is really only counting six years of operation. This was a deceptive effort to keep the bill's price tag under $1 trillion, even as the bill's price tag was really quite a bit more. Point for Ryan.

Point for Ryan???!!!!!

At the health-care summit: "President Obama won. So did congressional Republicans."

That means the losers were the congressional Democrats.

Among the Republicans, it seems that Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan was especially good:



If that's characteristic of the Republican's vigorous, incisive style — and that's the way it looked to us as we streamed the video — the Democrats came across looking frenzied and not well-grounded in sound policy. There were these random hard-luck stories. This is typical:



One feels sorry for the woman who wore her dead sister's dentures, but it doesn't establish that one policy is better than another. It's just a nervous cry to hurry up and do something. Do something... anything! That's not the way I think.