Category Archives: Chicago
Big Ten Numbers
The Big Ten hasn’t been that for a while. The ten became 12 when Penn State and Nebraska came on board. But at least they were still Big. Now the 10 are 14 with the addition of Rutgers and Maryland – not so big.
The number that really counts is the Big Three – Chicago, Washington DC, and New York city TV markets.
Paul Ryan
Romney’s choice of Ryan as his running mate will make the campaign less negative. That’s because now there’s a candidate I actually like.
Ryan’s a serious person. In February 2010 the president hosted a health care summit. He played the role of professor, addressing his congressional charges by their first names. Of course, it was all Mr. President to them. He seemed pleased with the arrangement. That was until until Ryan schooled him with his detailed criticism of the president’s own plan. The pique on the prez’s face is priceless in this video (It runs 6 minutes but you see The Face early on.)
Obama later took his revenge by inviting Ryan to sit in the front row for a speech about health care and entitlements. There he insulted his guest by suggesting his plan was un-American.
An unbowed Ryan stood up to the bully-in-chief with this response.
Ryan is still unbowed. I think his remarks yesterday in his first speech as a VP candidate, about our rights coming from nature and God, and not Governments, were directed at Obama. And I suspect the president is not 100% bought into the founders’ thinking on that subject. His seems more a philosophy where he bestows rights, waivers, and penalties on winners and losers of his own choosing.
Two views of government stand in clear contrast here. Ryan adds Jack Kemp style seriousness to Romney’s more free floating managerial skills. Ryan, and now Romney, will try to preserve a government of laws built on classical liberal values. Obama didn’t build that, somebody else did. But he does seem to be trying to rebuild something else.
Animal Farm
The going is getting weird. Chick-fil-A owner, Dan Cathy, expressed an opinion he shared with president Obama until a few weeks ago – namely, that marriage is between a man and a woman. This so outraged a newly sensitive Chicago alderman as well as the mayor of Boston that they threatened to destroy his business.
Meanwhile, Romney, hoping to avoid further display of his financial success, refuses to watch his ballet horse perform in the Olympics.
UPDATE: Cow wins, horse loses. Chic-fil-A had a record setting day Wednesday. Ann Romney’s horse, Rafalca, didn’t win a medal.
