Bruno Behrend

There is a great piece in the American Spectator about Paul Ryan and his “Road Map.” Ryan lacks Gingrich’s Machiavellian talents, and therefore isn’t in the running for taking over the party. Of course, Ryan doesn’t seem to have any of Newt’s devastating character flaws either.

The fact is that Ryan is a talent that is being wasted in the slow-witted and slow moving Republican Party. He’s a policy guy trying to save the nation while the party is run by idiots running the stupid “Pelosi Fright Wig” strategy. We all understand the trade off in winning elections. The GOP is once again choosing the wrong path, using the supposedly easier path of winning power by vacuity over running on ideas and then actually having a mandate to govern.

In this cycle, we could actually win an honest mandate for change by following Ryan. Instead, we are wasting the opportunity to put in a gaggle of intellectually flaccid graymeat who will do what Boehner tells them to do. This is a strategy for disaster.

Paul Ryan’s Friends

The amount of flack being directed at Ryan and his “Roadmap” has been rapidly increasing. Former White House budget director Peter Orszag, who should know better, trashed the Ryan plan in his farewell lecture at Brookings. This from the man who, as noted by the Wall Street Journal, “presided over record deficits of $1.4 trillion in 2009-or 9.9% of GDP-and an expected $1.5 trillion in 2010.” Cheeky fellow.

Jon Ward of the Daily Caller observed that this high-profile critique of Ryan “shows the seriousness with which Obama and his top advisers take Ryan’s alternative vision for the country’s future, as well as the vehemence with which they disagree.” Ward mentioned that the Orszag attack was the same day the Democratic National Committee attacked the “Roadmap.”

Note that the left takes Ryan more seriously than the leaders in his own party.

You can live with enemies in politics, but you can’t survive without friends. Ryan needs more than intellectual or moral support from conservative intellectuals, commentators, and even honest liberals, as important as they are. He and his “Roadmap” need the heartfelt support of his party, its leaders and its candidates across the country who must take the argument to the people in this watershed election year.

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.

As many readers here might know, I put forth a much bigger, better, and more visionary idea here a few days ago. While I laud Ryan as true thinker, leader, and one of the few hopes for a brain dead party, my idea is a better roadmap.