I’ve been following the program Homeland on Showtime closely. It came out of nowhere last year and floored me with its first season. It provokes the audience with its takes on terrorism, surveillance, mental health, political expediency, and national loyalty, to name a few. Its second season is well underway, and has taken some unexpected turns.

The awesome and erudite June Thomas graciously invited me to join her for a discussion of last night’s episode on Slate. It’s obviously more engrossing if you’ve been watching the show, but hopefully there are some nuggets worth extracting even if you haven’t. If you’re up for it, check it out here.

In case you didn’t hear, Barack Obama was reelected as president. (I’m not sure how I would feel if you actually hadn’t heard until now. Simultaneously flattered and abhorred that Brief Wit is your only source of news?)

The postmortems have come hard and fast since Obama’s victory, like that scene in The Avengers where the Hulk punches Thor in Grand Central.

In his own dissection of the loss, Romney inelegantly echoed the “47 percent” version of himself by saying Obama bestowed “gifts” on demographic groups. What you call “gifts,” I might call “rights” or “decencies,” but hey, let’s not parse. (Even Newt gave him grief for it.)

In the end, what looked to be the case became the reality.

Yes, Mitt Romney was so obviously and easily cast as a tone-deaf robber baron at possibly the worst time in 80 years to be labeled that way. But Romney was not just a bad candidate for his own message, he was a bad candidate for the GOP’s message. And, like a riesling paired with a ribeye, the GOP’s message was not very palatable to begin with.

Indeed, the predominant feature of these campaign postscripts has been clear-eyed criticism of the Republican party, chiefly its issue stances and waning appeal to a changing population. The takeaway: the GOP has run afoul of the electorate.

As the analyses have fluttered out, one of the earliest and most succinct was also probably the most palpable portrait, from former Bush reelection adviser Matthew Dowd on Good Morning America. He said that the GOP had become a “ ‘Mad Men’ party in a ‘Modern Family’ America.”

(I’m not saying it’s all over, but Sean Hannity’s already applied for Food Stamps.)

One thing is all but certain: Karl Rove’s permanent Republican majority is a no-go. (Turd Blossom womp womp.) That doesn’t mean Democrats will be in perpetual power, nor should they be cocky or naïve enough to think that’s attainable. (Wyoming’s not about to abandon the GOP en masse.)

The GOP is at the beginning of a fierce, messy struggle over its raison d’être.

Either the calcified right (Rush Limbaugh, Charles Krauthammer, Jim DeMint, and co.) will stonewall and eke it out, with increasingly outdated and untenable positions, or the more grounded, measured types (David Frum, Bobby Jindal, Rick Snyder, and such) will prevail by adjusting party stances, especially on social issues.

In the case of the former, they simply won’t persuade enough voters, and will erode their numbers further. In the latter case, the goalposts will move to the left (relatively speaking), and the party will be more moderate.

For the Democrats, it seems like a win-win: debate a weakened, cray cray opposition, or one that has, for reasons of survival, decided upfront to concede ground to you.

Since “Every four years, a new 18-22 year old cohort arrives that is more liberal than the one that has died off in the interim,” something’s gotta give. Demographic trends make it more challenging for the GOP to pull off a majority.

Republican governors are starting to speak their minds and stake their claims. And the odds are that the GOP will make some sort of comeback. Pundits and analysts have mainly spoken not about if the GOP will rebound, but how, and where it will land.

Still, I’ve found myself thinking, isn’t it conceivable that the Republicans could recede and be replaced? Or for that matter, at some point, could the Democrats?

The only place I heard anything close to this so far, was buried at the end of this New York Times piece, where the executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, R. Clarke Cooper, “said the party risks going the way of the Whigs or becoming a regional party” if it “does not make inroads among gay voters along with other minority groups.”

Arguably, the US has had at least five different eras of shifting party systems, when one came up (Republicans, Democrats) and another came down (Federalists, Whigs), or when the balance of power veered starkly. So, this is not without precedent.

What it boils down to is this: what’s the point of a party?

Is it to be or stay in power, even if you trade in your ideas? Or is it to hold a set of beliefs, values, and ideas, and apply them to government?

It seems that a party should only be as valuable as its people and its ideas. But if it’s not, will something else take its place if it lags?

As George Carlin put it with euphemisms: “These poor people have been bullshitted by the system into believing that if you change the name of the condition somehow you’ll change the condition. Well, hey cousin … doesn’t happen!”

If the Republicans modulate their positions on immigration, same-sex marriage, and other issues to survive, won’t it just be the opposite? The condition will change but the name will remain the same. I’m not arguing for their current prescriptions, but what is the point of that?

This is more cynical, or perhaps realistic, but on their faces, parties don’t matter. What matters is the apparatus our two dominant ones have erected: the name recognition, talented national strategists, established local chairmen, robust fundraising operation, and general history and familiarity. I suppose that’s why there’s no serious talk of winding down one party and winding up another.

The reason the Republicans can survive, and that an alternative will have a tough time taking their place, is that they’ve already built the factory. They just need to come up with a different, compelling product to put on the assembly line.

Maybe this is the tacit thing that all those pundits and analysts just know. That, due to the status quo, it would take such a monumental occurrence to knock one of the two parties down long enough for another to rise, that it won’t happen. Perhaps they underestimate the disrupting nature of the web in helping to level the playing field from a funding and communications perspective. Still, it would likely take a cadre of influential figures breaking off the GOP to do their own thing for it to have a ghost of a chance. (In all likelihood, this line of thinking is a total fantasy to perpetuate my theory of a moderate, Blue Dog-style party emerging, but if there were a robust three-party system, a plurality would do the trick.) The Bull Moose party gave it a shot 100 years ago, but didn’t win the Oval Office, even though it had the credibility of former occupant Teddy Roosevelt.

Perhaps instead of fixating on a party, we should heed the slogan of Obama’s rival in 2008: “Country First.”

It’s been bizarre, as Will Saletan said this week, to see Republican governors in New Jersey, Virginia, and Louisiana chew out their most stubborn citizens for refusing to evacuate, and yet eschew government for asking its citizens to buy health insurance. In either case, whether it is the stranded woman on the roof of her flooded house or the guy who rolls into the ER with a busted pelvis, our common humanity, government, and social contract impels us to try and save them:

“What’s odd about Christie and other Republican governors is that they recognize this principle only when a hurricane hits. When it comes to injury or disease, which we know will strike everyone on this planet, the Republican governors defend your right to ride it out. They oppose any requirement to buy health insurance. If you get sick, the rest of us will shell out to rescue you.

…

“Hurricanes and health care are different in many ways, of course. Buying health insurance is more expensive than evacuating for a natural disaster. But in both cases, the question is whether you should be allowed to make your own choices when the cost of bailing you out will fall on others. If the state has no business forcing you to buy health insurance, even when the premiums are subsidized, why should it be empowered to order you out of your home in a storm, just to save your skin? Why do Republican governors think they can have it both ways?”

It’s difficult to swallow your pride, and all the more agonizing to have to leave your home. I hope I’m never put in that position. If I was, I’m not sure making the right call would be easy. Lately, I’ve tended to think most people are bad at solving their own problems and better at solving other people’s.

After the poor decision to stay in their inundated town is laid bare for them by events, who knows better than the pig-headed couple who had to be rescued, that maybe the choice to “opt-in” shouldn’t have been left to them?

Sandy swept up the East Coast with reckless abandon. A hybrid hurricane-blizzard superstorm, she gives new meaning to the term crazy spinster. Who could possibly help us get back to our feet after such a destructive force of nature? Turns out it’s actually Big Brother.

Most of the time, we think of Big Brother as an overreaching, freedom-squeezing, privacy-seizing government, à la 1984. That’s the know-it-all older brother, the bullying one. And we should be concerned about him. (For instance, he got into warrantless wiretapping.)

It turns out there’s this other side to him though, one we see again and again in times like these, when a natural disaster threatens huge swaths of the population. That’s the rescuing, resource-sharing, crisis-managing Big Brother. The brother you could talk to about stuff, whose know-how and eagerness to help was a lifesaver, who figured out a way to solve problems when you couldn’t. (I have one, and he’s been both at points, but much more often the latter.)

Unless you’re a person of interest in a plot to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank, that’s the Big Brother you’re more likely to encounter in your lifetime.

And we need that one. Desperately. Otherwise, we won’t be ready for or able to recover after the increasingly common roadblocks from nature and God, forces that Paul Ryan has so dutifully touted this campaign season, albeit for different reasons.

Humans don’t control most things, but we’re learning the ones we can influence. Does smoking cause lung cancer? Basically, yes. Do fossil fuels affect climate changes that can lead to worse storms like this one? Very probably.

We know we do better when we plan for these contingencies. NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is a federal agency that has been around in some form for many decades, and the National Hurricane Center falls under it. Without them, we would not have known to brace ourselves strongly for impact, and the toll this storm took would have been even more grave. Further, without replacing their aging satellites, we may have a gap in information on major storms soon.

Similarly, on the back-end, we have seen what happens when FEMA is not well-funded or well-run. The hardest-hit victims have a much tougher route to recovery and means to rebuild.

FEMA and NOAA are considered non-military discretionary spending. After a catastrophe like this, it’s hard to call them discretionary.

It’s easy and tempting to bash the idea, but when water floods Hoboken and the East Village and massive fires break out in suburbs, you need Big Brother, you need Big Government to look out for you.

Big Bro, with its scale and collective resources, does do things that states can’t do, or can’t do nearly as well. New York and New Jersey aren’t each going to open their own NOAA. FEMA enables coordinated approaches across state lines. States face acute budget woes year-to-year and are at various levels of preparedness for myriad threats.

Instead of pushing disaster management to the states, a central conduit is essential. Even Chris Christie seemed to agree with that sentiment Wednesday. Maybe all this explains why Mitt Romney is tiptoeing back from a response he gave at a GOP primary debate last year with regard to the Joplin, MO tornados:

“Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.”

Talk about a disaster: what company could (profitably) go in and save victims in rafts and helicopters, for the right reasons, and who would listen to them? There are some services that everyone wants or needs that are simply not moneymakers.

We need to reduce our debt and balance the budget again, but Republicans want to cut in such a brazen way it would risk more lives in a storm like Sandy. They seem philosophically against a federal government performing those essential services that only a federal government can plausibly provide.

Further, disasters have struck all over the place recently, with storms up and down the East Coast and in the Gulf, overflowed rivers in Iowa, and earthquakes or fires out West, that there is basically nowhere left for residents to say, “That stuff doesn’t happen here. It happens to other people.” Everyone needs a Big Bro sometimes.

The presidential campaign is firing on all cylinders. If it were a Chevy Volt, it might actually have to stop for gas. President Obama and Mitt Romney will hold events in battleground states for the next 13 days, now that that their final debate is complete. But Monday’s wasn’t the final debate of the 2012 campaign.

There was another debate Tuesday night. No Obama, no Romney. No Biden, no Ryan.

CBS didn’t preempt NCIS (way too big a ratings winner) to show it to you. MSNBC didn’t offer special coverage in lieu of The Ed Show (if only) to bring it to you. And Fox News didn’t give The O’Reilly Factor a night off (and not simply because we all know Bill likes to do it live).

Instead, third party candidates for the presidency held a debate in Chicago. The only way to see it was to stream it online at http://freeandequal.org.

Four candidates from outside of the two dominant outfits attended: Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Constitution Party candidate Virgil Goode, and Justice Party candidate Rocky Anderson. The discussion was moderated by Larry King, who despite being irresistibly easy to make fun of, is credible.

King’s rationale for putting on his suspenders Tuesday was simple: “It’s a two-party system, but not a two-party system by law.”

While none of the candidates in Tuesday’s debate is a threat to win the election, that doesn’t mean they don’t pose a threat, per the AP: “Democrats and Republicans are keeping tabs on Johnson and Goode, two ex-Republicans who could be factors in key battleground states.” The New York Times also reported recently on how Johnson, who is on the ballot in 48 of 50 states, may affect the results in some of the battlegrounds.

Coincidentally, Gary Johnson is being advised by the one and only Roger Stone, disgruntled longtime GOP operative. There were hints. As Stone told me two years ago:

RS: I can tell you who I’m not for: Mitt Romney.

Explain to me how you go to bed one night pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, pro-tax increase, pro-more spending. And you wake up the very next morning, and you change your mind on every one of those issues. He’s a phony. I do think you can change your mind on issues over time because facts change. You learn new things. I do think people evolve. But when you cash in your entire belief system overnight, that’s not credible.

Plus, he’s got the Bushies around him. The same people that were interested in seizing the party machinery for Jeb are around Mitt.

BW: Do you have anyone in mind?

RS: I like John Thune, Senator from South Dakota. I like [former governor of New Mexico] Gary Johnson, though I don’t know if he is electable. Essentially, he divorced his wife and she went out and killed herself. Not a good narrative if you’re trying to get elected.

(For what it’s worth, I’m not sure that last part about Johnson’s wife is accurate.)

There is now a permanent link to Tuesday’s third party debate:

It’s disappointing that after some 27 primary debates for the major party with a contest for the nomination this year, most of which were televised on cable, and four general election debates simulcast on dozens of channels, that no network stepped up to give Tuesday’s candidates a wider forum.

I don’t have a dog in this fight. I’m not particularly familiar with any of the four candidates who were on the dais Tuesday night. I might agree with some of their issue stances, but would probably also find some of them bonkers, unrealistic, or a combination of the two. None of them has a viable chance to win the election. I’m also fairly certain that none of them would be a truly competent and acceptable choice to run the country.

And yet, it’s unfortunate that they did not receive wider exposure. With a few million people or more tuning in to this election cycle’s GOP primary debates, and an average of 64 million people watching the Obama-Romney debates this month, the head of a news division could have credibly stepped up and made a case for this third party debate.

But even King didn’t or couldn’t use his clout to get it on his old network, CNN, despite the fact that putting on a debate is not prohibitively expensive. It’s as cheap or cheaper than most reality TV. Perhaps the cable channels were worried about showcasing crazy or offensive views? They could certainly vet the candidates. Besides, third parties don’t have a monopoly on those.

For all those who normally tune out politics, this debate was an invitation. Most of us have friends and acquaintances in our daily lives, that together add up to millions of people around the nation, who eschew the current dynamic. Maybe they complain about partisan gridlock. Maybe they don’t feel either of the two parties meshes enough with their combination of views. Maybe they are bona fide centrists. Maybe they find themselves on the far sides of the spectrum. Maybe they say our elected officials are crooks, or are bought and sold by corporations. And so, for whatever reeason, they disengage. This was an opportunity to reach them.

Those same people who complain about the entrenched two-party system, who wish there were another way, are often quick to dismiss a third party alternative when it presents itself. They don’t give it a chance to get off the ground.

Those people say nobody will take the party/candidate seriously, it can’t win and isn’t viable, so why cover it? Those people often neglect to realize that movements grow gradually and gain influence over time once they are given some. (What is the Tea Party if not a microcosm of that?) A media outlet should have given these candidates that sliver of a chance to take flight.

The good news is that there’s still time. There will be a second third party debate (relish that wordplay) on October 30th between the top two candidates from Tuesday’s debate. Anyone can go online and vote (via instant runoff voting) for the pair they want to see here.

As I obsess about the outcome of this election, I know this is all just a solitary blip on the radar screen, but perhaps it shouldn’t be.

Maybe we’ll do a better job in 2016.

One of the chief questions being posed in this year’s presidential campaign is: would a businessman make a good president?

A definitive “Yes” is the central declaration of Mitt Romney’s campaign.

He has “an abiding belief that corporate methods can be applied to the political sphere.” It’s up for debate, but hey, if corporate influence is already being applied to the political sphere (and then some), why not?

This approach is of course to the chagrin of some and pride of others, but it is assuredly what Romney wants to do.

And yet, “The relationship between a nation and its leader is far more complex than the relationship between shareholders and a CEO,” as David Von Drehle said in Time.

I’ve been ruminating on the same question, of what I’ll call the Biz Prez.

The problem at the core of this premise is that the premise itself is overly simplistic and reductive. It assumes that all businessmen and businesswomen are the same, when in fact, there is no such thing as a typical business or businessperson.

(Disclosure: I would have voted for H. Ross Perot in ’92 if I were of age. If someone shares your name, you fall in line, doubly so when he prefers it over his first name. That’s why the tens of Mitts and Baracks in this country have already chosen sides, but perhaps not the Willards and Husseins.)

Business is far too wide of a term. Are we talking finance or food service? Car manufacturing or couture? Health care or hotels? Is there a difference between a 35,000+ person corporation or a small business that’s had great success? These issues have received sparse attention.

Is a hedge fund manager as qualified to talk about the economy as a guy who owns nine Wendy’s franchise locations or a woman who has served as a consultant to dozens of companies running the gamut in size and style? Perhaps one knows numbers better while the other grasps the finer points of people leadership and realities of benefits, while the last is skilled at operating within complex hierarchies. All of those traits are distinct and useful in different aspects of the presidency.

Those types of contrasting arguments are analogous to the ones commonly made about the relative strengths and weaknesses of governors, senators, and generals making good presidents. And experiences in those public service roles are entirely appropriate and fair game to analyze in a campaign (especially when a candidate relies on them). So then, it stands to reason that the kind of business work one does is similarly relevant, and not merely to unearth scandal, but to ascertain the skills and judgment they afford our potential Biz Prez with.

This is clearly evident with regards to the tools needed to continue mending our recovering economy. But at times, the coming election seems to be almost too much about the economy. There are a vast array of other national responsibilities, social issues, security threats, and international opportunities a president addresses. What background might make a Biz Prez better-suited for those?

It is not a partisan issue, but a sociological one.

A risky start-up type that hit it big might have green-lit the Osama bin Laden raid, but he might also play chicken on the debt ceiling. A bootstraps-pulling, common sense type might be able to cut across party lines and achieve practical immigration reform. A financial wiz might achieve a budget surplus, but stifle GDP. It’s a given that we would have to acknowledge other aspects of the specific person in question’s background when drawing our judgments on their readiness.

Many presidents have worked in the private sector (and not only as lawyers) prior to assuming the office, but for the purposes of our discussion, we’re referring to those who put in substantial time and were known primarily for it.

Based on that definition, we have actually had one or two Biz Prezzes before. George W. Bush was once touted as the first MBA president, though it’s fair to say there was a little more at play there than his time at HBS or experience running the Texas Rangers (i.e. his family, his governorship). However, Herbert Hoover would appear to qualify outright: he was well known for a career in mining and even apparently once said, “If a man has not made a million dollars by the time he is forty, he is not worth much.” (Of course, there are the little wrinkles that Bush’s presidency ended in the Great Recession and Hoover led the country into the Great Depression. Womp womp.)

Perhaps the right kind of businessperson could have gotten us to this moment sans the massive national debt that haunts us, so much so that we let China graze directly on our financial crops without so much as a scarecrow. Further, maybe he/she could have raised our average net worth, empowered the market to solve health care, or cracked the code on taxes. Then again, a strict fiscal Biz Prez might value a balanced budget over something equally or more important, such as increasing quality of life.

If we are to have a Biz Prez though, it seems to me that it would be someone from a more conventional, less controversial business than Romney’s at Bain Capital, one that is easier for the electorate to understand and admire, or at least respect. Y’know, more along the lines of Herman Cain with Godfather’s Pizza, except y’know, not Herman Cain. And not vomit-ocious pizza.

The inherent enthusiasm and relatability of people cut from more of a small business cloth was evident on a Romney conference call this summer. This tweet from John Dickerson cuts to the crux of it:

Challenge for Romney: the small business people on call today told a better story about business (with examples & passion) than candidate.

—
John Dickerson (@johndickerson) July 17, 2012

Or maybe it’s just that literally the wrong people are running to be commander-in-chief executive, like Romney, Steve Forbes, and Donald Trump. Mayor Bloomberg never got serious, and will not run, as he reasserted to Piers Morgan in July. But why not guys like Tim Cook of Apple, Steven Ells of Chipotle, or Ken Chenault of American Express? At the least, all three are dynamic, smart, openly human, and have compelling stories to tell.

Even so, there’s one other notable difference between business and government that most captains of industry are not accustomed to:

You can fire your employees, but they can’t fire you.

You can’t fire the American people, but they can fire you.

Did anyone tell Paul Ryan’s congressional staff that he has been selected as the vice presidential candidate for the Republican party?

Mitt Romney made it official six days ago, but there is still no mention of this pretty major development to his constituents in Wisconsin on his official Congress homepage, as you can see here, or in the screenshot above.

There is no word of it anywhere I can see, including on the “Newsroom” page, something that would otherwise seem to be a good fit for that section:

Now, it’s a rare, if non-existent person who only looks at the website of their member of Congress and does not encounter other news, so this may not be particularly scandalous, but why not acknowledge it? I’m not saying it’s the first thing to do when the news breaks, but you would think someone might make note of it after a bunch of days.

Is there some reason behind this? Win or lose, does his new status portend to a disadvantage for his district in the future?

If someone is going to check their representative’s site, there is a decent chance they are reasonably engaged, and either already have an idea about or are quick to learn of their member’s party affiliation and/or policy preferences. Chances are they have also probably heard he’s a candidate to be the country’s number two.

On ReadWriteWeb, Joe Brockmeier recently assessed the dismal state of our statesmen’s aggregated electronic statements: ”The overall site design for most of the sites is mediocre, overly busy, and more like a travel brochure site than anything designed to inform voters.” (To his credit, Ryan’s does include a voting record, which apparently most do not.)

The average member of Congress’ website is pretty mundane, so you would think it might be worth highlighting something that stands apart from the ho-hum press releases and trite remarks that populate most of them.

Even when Congress is out of session, as it is now, people are still working (and fundraising) in Washington and in home districts.

So, what has Ryan’s paid staff in Washington and his district been doing these last six days? His needs are well tended to on the campaign trail by Romney folk.

By the way, since he also serves as Chairman of the Budget Committee for the 112th Congress, Ryan has another official website in addition to that of his district’s that his office appears to run. No sign there, either:

Once again, the “News” section lacks any for the last week:

Why is this the case?

Early Saturday morning, Mitt Romney announced his pick of Paul Ryan to be his running mate.

Seriously Roms, the way into journalists’ hearts is not to make them get up early on a Saturday or cut off their vacations:

Remember weekends? #campaign2012

—
Sarah Boxer (@Sarah_Boxer) August 11, 2012

Vacation abruptly over. Shaved. Kids and wife kissed. Driving all night.

—
John Dickerson (@jdickerson) August 11, 2012

Besides, supposedly, the Congressman from Wisconsin needs his beauty sleep to boot:

Ryan students know he is MUCH better performer+handsomer when he gets sufficient sleep. Will be interesting to see if Boston executed that

—
Mark Halperin (@Markhalperin) August 11, 2012

And sorry Paulie, but as I recently learned, your new boss’s religion forbids drinking coffee! (Romney might lose the election on that issue alone if word got out.) So, good luck perking up on those 18-hour campaign days ahead.

My lack of morning personhood notwithstanding, when word came late Friday night that Romney was naming his vice president in the AM, I joined the ranks of the curious. It would be in Virgina? In Norfolk?  Could it be the state’s “overreaching” governor, Bob McDonnell? Or David Petraeus, based on the military locale? No. And hell no. A bit later, the specific venue was leaked: the USS Wisconsin. It had to be Ryan.

So, I awoke to the scene and took in all the pomp (chiefly the Air Force One theme) and circumstance (a strange sort of military background for two men who lack any).

I watched Ryan speak. He delivered his remarks well, but there was one oral tick I noticed. Usually, when the crowd gets revved up and cheers, the speaker either waits and lets them clap and shout, or he/she uses their ovation as momentum to finish the statement robustly, riding the wave of excitement by speaking louder over them in a way that adds gravitas and serves as a strident capstone to the argument. You’ve seen it in just about every Obama speech. Ryan does the opposite, and it’s kind of funny: he speaks under the crowd. When the claps continue after he’s finished his sentence, he underlines it with quieter, ho-hum affirmations like “That’s right” and “That’s who we are” into the microphone. The whole speech is below. An example of the above begins with the sequence around 13:15:

Onto the repercussions of this choice for VP. His name, his vigor, and his dreamy blue eyes can’t help me from comparing him to Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan movies. (Okay, fine, Ben Affleck you can come, too, but this changes nothing between us: you can direct the Justice League movie, but don’t star in it.) Jack Ryan, the capable “old-enough-but-young-enough” hero, finds himself in some harrowing situations. Paul Ryan’s effect on the GOP ticket could make for the same:

Clear and Present Danger - Ryan is a self-avowed deficit nerd. With the imminent reunion of the Spice Girls set to close the Olympics this weekend coinciding with Romney’s pick, Ryan might want to consider calling Mel B (or C) to join in last-minute as Fiscal Spice (credit for that one belongs to my Irish bestie), and help revive the Romney campaign’s international image.

In any event, Ryan does rightly see the national debt as a major threat to the country’s well-being. However, to address this problem, he put forth a budget plan that is strikingly different than previous administrations on both sides of the aisle have proposed, and that is unabashedly conservative in its cutting and discarding of numerous programs that currently benefit tens of millions of Americans. The House passed it, and the Senate would likely turn Republican and do the same if Romney wins. Romney’s embrace of Ryan on that stage is an implicit embrace of these policies. Will voters choose Romney and the Ryan budget or the more moderate approach of Obama?

The Sum of All Fears - One of the key provisions in Ryan’s budget is an extreme alteration of Medicare and Medicaid. His plan calls for “shifting more costs onto individuals and essentially converting Medicare into a capped voucher program” where health care will cost seniors much more. Medicaid would become a “block grant” to the states. It could be argued that these changes are much more (detrimentally) significant to health care than those of the Affordable Care Act. Democrats will be all too eager to stoke that fire, accusing Romney and Ryan of gutting Medicare. This will cause fright among the elderly, who Romney needs to win, and who happen to constitute a crucial voting bloc in a certain battleground state 90 miles from Cuba.

Patriot Games - If you heard any of the speeches – McDonnell introducing Romney, Romney unveiling Ryan, Ryan accepting the honor – you might have noticed they laid the national pride on pretty thick. That’s to be expected. Ryan probably got the biggest applause from saying, “But America is more than just a place… it’s an idea. It’s the only country founded on an idea. Our rights come from nature and God, not government. We promise equal opportunity, not equal outcomes.” I’m not going to unpack the whole line, but I will say that other countries have been founded on ideas; ours is just the best one yet.

Talking about God is not really something you do to win over independents. And with Ryan’s budget being so divisive already, it’s clear this pick was not a play by Romney’s campaign to do so. It’s a signal that Romney intends to rally a skeptical Tea Party/GOP base to turn out for him with what they perceive to be a “true” conservative, by tempting them with the boogeyman of a “failed” Obama, and touting these “real” American principles. Both sides often use the politics of patriotism genuinely and to their benefit, and it’s terrific we are all proud of our country. But this year an especially hard push seems to be a key component of the Republican plan for victory.

And of course…

The Hunt for Red October November - (Apologies for the above, the Brief Wit graphics department lacks The Daily Show’s budget.) The goal of Saturday’s decision, which I will concede I enjoyed more than Lebron James’ The Decision, is to shake things up so much that they paint the town red: Republicans in Washington keeping control of the House, eking out the Senate, and of course taking the White House.

It feels like an all or nothing proposition, though. Based on the drastic changes they would appear to be advocating, it’s hard to imagine many people stepping into the booth and taking a chance by voting for Romney/Ryan, while also choosing (former DNC chair) Tim Kaine for Senate in Virginia, for instance. Or Claire McCaskill in Missouri. Romney and Ryan have to win the argument convincingly, preferably with coattails.

I’m not sure if they can. It’s not only because Obama and Biden are not amateurs, or, for example, because after Scott Walker survived his recall in Ryan’s home state, voters still favored Obama.

Everyone’s pretty numb to risk after the last time around, but let’s face it, this is a risky pick. It’s not Sarah Palin-risky, but it ain’t Al Gore-safe, either.

Ryan may succeed in galvanizing the base for Romney (something Obama needs to crack the code on in his own right), but I can’t see either of these guys doing foreign policy, partially because they never have. (Biden complemented concerns about Obama, if you recall; he was chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.)

This is also the first non-Protestant ticket in GOP history. (Ryan is Catholic.) This isn’t JFK in 1960, but will evangelical Christians come out for these guys? They are already suspicious of Romney because of his Mormonism. I love the irony: of all four candidates, Obama is the only Protestant, but people think he’s a Muslim!

Finally, at 42, Ryan kind of looks like the sixth son Romney never had. (He is actually the same age as Mitt’s eldest.) Will citizens believe Ryan is prepared to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?

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That’s all TBD. According to a number of reporters and pundits though, the upshot of this ticket is that due to the wide gulf between their intentions for spending and approaches to the role of government, that Romney/Ryan v. Obama/Biden will commence a real, substantive debate, that it has to.

I hope so, but it remains to be seen. Unfortunately, our political discourse tends to regress towards a mean of platitudes and faux controversy.

Supposedly, both sides are pleased with this choice. We’ll know who is most pleased in November.

Around the world, economies remain on shaky ground. Even the BRICs are breaking. Brazil, Russia, India, and China are all reporting slower growth or swallowing diluted forecasts from analysts.

Of course, nowhere has the situation been more dire, tenuous, or fraught than in Europe, where the insolvency of banks and governments inside the eurozone is more than enough to make you skip ordering that soufflé. Finance ministers from across the continent have basically been in a six-month long meeting working to address it, and it feels like they may just be up to the task after all. Then again, who knows.

Nonetheless, in most articles I read that reference the economy in the context of the presidential election, President Obama is handicapped for the state of the European economy, because its turmoil affects us.

A weak American economy is never going to aid an incumbent, no matter what causes it. But shouldn’t the fiscal crisis in Europe actually be something that makes Obama look more favorable?

Doesn’t it validate his choices to bet on fostering growth over embracing austerity?

In 2009 with the Stimulus, and again in 2010 with the December tax deal, Obama made deliberate Keynesian pushes to first, defibrillate the economy, and then give it some fresh oxygen. The result is that the recovery began, albeit slowly: markets stabilized, stocks rose, and 4.3 millions jobs have been created thus far.

No doubt, the recovery needs to be stronger (tepid seems to be the favorite word of the press) and we can argue over the reasons why that might be: should the initial measures have been bigger, did the health care debate distract too much, have the Republicans impeded meaningful economic improvements to enhance their political fortunes, etc.

But that’s not the point here. This is a lesser-of-two-ills proposition. By comparison, we are much better off. Economically, would you rather be the US or Europe today? It’s an easy choice. We have weathered this relatively well (says the guy who was laid off at the outset).

And yet, instead, the current global dynamic will almost assuredly hurt Obama: voters will feel a weaker economy due in part to Europe and its massive trade with America remaining weighed down, and they will blame POTUS.

Further, not only should Europe be helping Obama, it should be hurting Mitt Romney.

Like many Republicans, he decries Europe, not for its approach to the global recession, but for the elements of socialism it blends with capitalism. (By the way, its socialism is much more like this, and not the kind we should fear, like this.)

When it comes to economic policy though, Romney does not synch. He favors more of the very austerity approach that led Europe down the kitchen disposal unit in the last few years. So, I would prefer he not bring it here.

He recently said, “If I were not to … get elected, we would instead in my view become more like Europe with higher deficits, with a debt that could put us in a Greece or Spain or Italy-like circumstance, with chronic high unemployment, with low wage growth and with a military that gets slowly but surely hollowed out so it could pay for the various programs that government would try to keep in place.”

The irony is that the policies he espouses were enacted in the Old World, and the picture he describes is largely what they are left grappling with. As Andrew Leonard at Salon put it, Mitt is the real European.

Let’s face it. Austerity is not sexy. And neither is Angela Merkel.

As Alexis Tsipras, the young leader of the Greek opposition, said in May, “The message we’re giving to the G-8 is that we have to press Mrs. Merkel to follow the example of America, where the debt crisis wasn’t tackled with austerity measures but with an expansionist approach.”

I’m not an economist, but I can tell that austerity does not spur growth, at least not in the short term. In observing the last few years, it appears to bravely but misguidedly preserve a small set of funds or programs at the expense of cutting many others that might otherwise, in concert, lead the way to expansion.

It’s encouraging, after the countries’ different experiments, that the G-8 leaders have now opted to “Urge Growth, Not Austerity.”

But if we had followed Romney’s prescriptions (or do in the future), we would probably end up cutting our way back to recession. It’s unlikely he will be demerited for this.

Conversely, Obama should get credit that we aren’t in the kind of baleful situation Europe is digging itself out of, but he won’t.

Aaron Sorkin hasn’t had a show on television in five years. Now, his latest project, The Newsroom, is premiering on HBO. It’s Sorkin’s corrective to cable news.

There’s been plenty of writing about it, from all angles: character studies, accuracy studies, interviews, grating interviews. Oh yeah, there are even some reviews.

Journalists love writing about Sorkin. He is arguably the best-known screenwriter in America. He has a distinct style. He is talented, opinionated and loquacious. There is a lot to agree or disagree with in his comments and work.

He also chooses his projects carefully: he only has ten writing credits on IMDb. It appears his eleventh will be adapting Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. (Sorry Ashton, you picked the wrong script.)

I’ve actually written something about Aaron Sorkin, as well. But, like his last work on TV, mine is also from 2007.

This was before Brief Wit, before I began writing on an ongoing basis.

I wrote this piece five years ago and couldn’t get it published.

I think it’s relevant to share now…

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It’s Not TV. It’s Aaron Sorkin.

What’s gone right, wrong and why Aaron Sorkin should ditch network television

As he reverts back to film and stage, high profile screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s TV life is at a crossroads. His last show, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, was canned and is not about to be resurrected in a backlash by a horde of fans that were nuts about it. This fall season will be the first in ten years that a series he created hasn’t been on the schedule.

Sorkin’s track record with TV series is mixed. His three shows have all premiered to glowing reviews, being hailed as sharp, smart, and sarcastic, but inevitably the ratings have fallen off or were never really strong to begin with, so the network pressure began to mount up. Sports Night, his first try, was given two seasons to find an audience, Studio 60 barely got away with one, even when it was clear the numbers weren’t going up. As for The West Wing, his shining achievement about a fictional White House administration, even its fate was tenuous season-to-season due to declining returns.

So, why can’t this guy get a show renewed more often than not?

Is it because the content is too smart and opinionated? Is it his propensity for high-mindedness on TV sets? Is it his unwavering consistency to politicize his shows? Well, for starters …yes.

Sorkin is TV’s lone “utopian solipsist” as New York Magazine’s Emily Nussbaum characterized him. His own lofty ideas of the way the world should work occupy every scene he writes. What other writer so blatantly infuses politics into his shows, overtly debating policy and propping up liberal ideals episode to episode, throwing the Republicans a token bone every now and again so he can say he did?

The general network TV audience likes to be challenged and impressed, but only to a point. Viewers en masse don’t want to turn on an entertainment program and be preached to about democratic values. And when has there ever been an explicitly conservative entertainment show on TV, in the way Sorkin’s have been liberal? The networks don’t put on shows that are overtly partisan unless they hide their politics behind gunfights and explosions, à la 24.

His juxtaposition of wedge issue back-and-forth banter interlaced with pop cult name-dropping and characters repeating the same quirky phrase of dialogue with a fresh coat of snark each time gets cumbersome. The intellectual concentration it requires to catch this tightly packed dialogue is substantial. It’s no secret that people on TV shows are supposed to speak smarter than the rest of us, but he has taken his characters’ collective wit to Mensa standards.

All these qualities have served him well in one way, though. They’ve attracted a small, but engaged, loyal, liberal, and most importantly affluent audience, which is why advertisers were willing to pay to reach this demographic even if the ratings weren’t high.

But the reasons the liberal elite loves him are the reasons the general populace has not tuned in. It’s the same reason the networks can only bear the DNC and RNC conventions every four years. The ratings keep falling. This hyper-appeal to a niche audience is at once a crutch and a curse.

Moreover, if Sorkin is trying to learn from experience, he isn’t doing a great job. He hasn’t exactly brought something brand new to the screen with each series. He started out with Sports Night, looking behind-the-scenes of a late night TV show, and ended up at the same place with Studio 60. One was sports and one was comedy, but if you’ve seen SNL and SportsCenter in the last few years, it’s getting hard to say which one tries and fails to makes you laugh more. In between there, he went behind-the-scenes of a Presidential administration, which for all intents and purposes is run like a TV show with its scripted and staged moments.

Sorkin’s writing has become formulaic, something that the current crop of successful shows (procedural crime dramas notwithstanding) like Lost and Prison Break have steered away from. If you like his formula, then you don’t mind so much, but if you don’t, then you change the channel.

Furthermore, a key reason why West Wing enjoyed some success, and conversely why Studio 60 failed, is because the White House is the one place where Americans long for high ideals, patriotism, dignity, and transcendent purpose. It was not plausible as an SNL knock-off: Tracy Morgan, Amy Poehler, and Jimmy Fallon were not having these talks. Plus, Sorkin’s sketches weren’t funny.

And, the reliance on the same handful of actors to play all of his characters has not helped freshen things up. Josh Lyman goes to Hollywood? Cue Bradley Whitford. Need a stereotype-fitting conservative but want him to be articulate? Cue John Goodman. Need Josh Malina to play Josh Malina? Re-watch The American President and cue Josh Malina. And that’s just scratching the surface.

Yet it’s not that Sorkin doesn’t have the talent in him. The first four years of West Wing are prolific, some of the best television programming in the last 20 years. This is the show that goes up against the family and wins, beating The Sopranos in the Emmys for top drama those first four years in a row. And lest we forget, this is when Sopranos solidified its legendary status, so much so that the New York Times’ Alessandra Stanley wryly remarked recently while reviewing a new program, “It would be blasphemy to invoke The Sopranos, since no show is that good, not even The Sopranos.” Well, I guess West Wing was.

After that (and a few run-ins with the hallucinogenic mushroom police), Sorkin left West Wing, every episode of which he had written until that point, and the ratings remained in the basement, or at least on the creaky stairway leading down to it, for three more years.

The fall after that show ended, Studio 60 came on, got the biggest and best buzz of any pilot last year, and was put on the bench midseason. Its cancellation was a foregone conclusion, but out of respect to his talent and following, NBC quietly played out the remaining episodes in June. The broadcast networks will think twice now before greenlighting a pilot of his, even if it seems brilliant.

So, what’s a critically acclaimed screenwriter with chronic ratings issues to do? Go to the television equivalent of private equity, where ratings don’t matter… much: the elixir to all that ails Sorkin is HBO.

The two are a great match. HBO is high-minded, contemplative, and far-sighted. Most of its shows get a fair shake, even the ones that fall off their original peaks (see Arli$$) or were never good to start (Mind of the Married Man and Lisa Kudrow in The Comeback, which by the way, did not come back). Its subscriber base is the audience Sorkin has always been playing to: the affluent liberal elite. Perhaps most importantly, it is not afraid to be provocative or political. The HBO audience knows what it is getting; it expects unconventional programming with a slant. Subscribers make a conscious choice for this, unlike in network television.

HBO is in the midst of launching a slew of new series, but thus far they are not exactly inheriting The Sopranos mantle. Without a true hourlong hit on their hands, HBO needs to reconsider ways to draw in a big Sunday audience.

In Sorkin, HBO would get a talented, well-known writer whose work is tailored to their viewership. With all those massive Sopranos salaries gone, they can afford to take a chance on him and what will at the least be an intriguing concept, if not an award-worthy show. HBO’s model is much more conducive to giving shows an opportunity to find an audience. With widespread on-demand programming, repeats throughout the week, and the lack of urgency and reliance on advertisers, they can allow shows a chance in a way network television is increasingly unable to. Plus, people feel drawn to watch HBO to make the most of their money.

Look at the bright side for Sorkin. Freedom with the format might even spark him creatively. He can try whatever he wants without the specter and stigma of cautious network brass censoring his ideas. HBO embraces debating an issue over the course of a show or even a season; it shows depth. And it would be a nice exercise to see Aaron Sorkin explore the limits of language and violence in his own way. I mean, can you imagine encountering one of those wordy exchanges, rife with expletives and deviant sexual slang?

Besides, everything just seems better on HBO. And even if it’s not that good, you can just say it’s misunderstood because it’s complex or philosophical.

If you don’t want to change yourself, change the game. Hopefully Sorkin will give it some thought and get the development process rolling.

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Since I wrote this, Aaron Sorkin’s had great success in the cinema with Charlie Wilson’s War, The Social Network, for which he won an Oscar, and Moneyball. And despite what some of the above might suggest, I’m a huge fan: The West Wing is hands-down my favorite show of all time. I’m looking forward to seeing what Sorkin does on HBO.