"There are some very serious issues at stake in this year's election -- so many that some people may not be able to see the forest for the trees. Individual issues are the trees, but the forest is the future of America as we have known it. 

"The America that has flourished for more than two centuries is being quietly but steadily dismantled by the Obama administration, during the process of dealing with particular issues. 

"For example, the merits or demerits of President Obama's recent executive order, suspending legal liability for young people who are here illegally, presumably as a result of being brought here as children by their parents, can be debated pro and con. But such a debate overlooks the much more fundamental undermining of the whole American system of Constitutional government. ...

"If laws passed by the elected representatives of the people can be simply over-ruled unilaterally by whoever is in the White House, then we are no longer a free people, choosing what laws we want to live under."

"Lawyers for the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee marched into federal court last week to argue that it is unconstitutional for Ohio to allow military voters to cast in-person early ballots on the Saturday through Monday before Election Day, given that early voting for all other voters stops on the Friday before Election Day. Apparently, Team Obama has decided to take a break from howling about the alleged injustice of voter-ID laws to argue that military voters don’t deserve an occasional accommodation. ... 

"The National Guard Association of the United States, AMVETS (American Veterans), the Association of the U.S. Army, and twelve other military organizations have asked that the Obama lawsuit be dismissed. With all of this negative publicity, you’d think that Team Obama lawyers would retreat. But they are not retreating. Instead, they are marching into a fight they are ultimately doomed to lose. Apparently, as with their opposition to voter-ID laws, they have concluded that all they have to do is throw enough legal bombs: Some of them will detonate, hamstringing election laws they think will hurt the president’s chances for a second term."

"While Ryan’s effect on 2012 is as yet undetermined — it depends on the success or failure of Mediscare — there is less doubt about the meaning of Ryan’s selection for beyond 2012. He could well become the face of Republicanism for a generation. 

"There’s a history here. By choosing George H. W. Bush in 1980, Ronald Reagan gave birth to a father-son dynasty that dominated the presidential scene for three decades. The Bush name was on six of seven consecutive national tickets. 

"When Dwight Eisenhower picked Richard Nixon in 1952, he turned a relatively obscure senator into a dominant national figure for a quarter-century; Nixon appeared on the presidential ticket in five of six consecutive elections. ... 

"[W]hile Romney is the present, Ryan is the future. Romney’s fate will be determined on November 6. Ryan’s presence, assuming he acquits himself well in the campaign, will extend for decades. ... 

If Ryan does it well, win or lose in 2012, he becomes a dominant national force. Mild and moderate Mitt Romney will have shaped the conservative future for years to come."

"Vice President Joe Biden played the race card this week when he drawled Southern-style to a racially mixed audience that if Mitt Romney takes the White House, he'll 'unchain Wall Street. They're going to put y'all back in chains.' ...   

"The president's henchmen are running a dirty campaign. The worst part of it: These nasty antics are the best Obamaland has to offer.
 
"Don't take my word for it. Heed the message delivered by Obama himself when he accepted the Democratic nomination for president in Denver in 2008: 'If you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things.'"

"Pundits who claim the [Paul Ryan] pick was all about shoring up the right or the tea party fundamentally misunderstand conservatives, Paul Ryan and big-idea politics. 

"It’s not that Mr. Ryan is someone sufficiently conservative or someone who will rally the tea party folks to get behind a guy who has a sad track record of being a principled conservative only at the times that helped him politically. 

"Rather, all the hosannas arose from the farthest quarters of the Republican Party because in his first major decision as the party’s expected nominee, Mr. Romney decided to be serious. He picked one of the most — one of the only — serious people who have spent most of their adult lives working in Washington and trying to fundamentally reform it."

"Is America ready for a serious discussion of issues, rather than the superficial approach that has defined so much of modern politics? We're about to find out. There may be a remnant, a Puritan ethic, still living within our collective DNA that can remind us about the evil of debt, living within one's means and taking care of yourself first, rather than relying on inefficient and overreaching government.

"The Obama administration has done nothing to warrant a second term. If Ryan and Romney can force Americans to pay attention to the need for real change, instead of the unaffordable snake oil Obama has been selling, they will win handily and take back the Senate for Republicans. Anyone needing to be reminded of Ryan's debating skills should re-visit his criticism of the president's health-care measure before it passed with most of Congress not knowing what was in it. ...

"This election isn't about politicians; it's about us. Clearing the debris caused by broken and dysfunctional government, while maintaining a safety net for the genuinely needy, will not only restore the economy, it will restore optimism.

"Ronald Reagan (Romney-Ryan is another 'RR') ran for re-election in 1984 and inspired people to believe in themselves, not government. President Obama appears to want the opposite."

"He doesn't fit some of the standard criteria for vice president. He hasn't won a statewide election, held an executive position or become well-known nationally or even in much of Wisconsin. 

"But more than anyone else, more even (as impolite as it is to say) than the putative presidential nominee, Ryan has set the course for the Republican Party for the past three years, both on policy and in politics. From his post as chairman of the House Budget Committee, he has made himself not just a plausible national nominee but a formidable one by advancing and arguing for major changes in entitlement policy. 

"He has argued consistently that entitlement programs -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid -- are on an unsustainable trajectory. Left alone, they threaten to crowd out necessary government spending and throttle the private sector. ... 

"One more thing about Ryan, I think, appealed to Romney. He already has shown he cannot be intimidated by the most eminent opponent. ... 

"Romney's selection of Ryan shows he wants a debate on whether America should follow Obama on the road to a European-style welfare state."

"In 1988, Michael Dukakis famously said, 'This election is not about ideology; it’s about competence.' He lost. If Republicans want to win, Obama’s deeply revealing, teleprompter-free you-didn’t-build-that confession of faith needs to be hung around his neck until Election Day. The third consecutive summer-of-recovery-that-never-came is attributable not just to Obama being in over his head but, even more important, to what’s in his head: a government-centered vision of the economy and society, and the policies that flow from it. 

"Four years of that and this is what you get. 

"Make the case and you win the White House."

"The welfare reform of 1996 stands as perhaps the most important entitlement reform in the nation’s history. Its successes stem from a core requirement that able-bodied parents must work, search for work, or train for work to be eligible for public assistance.
 
"But now, under the guise of providing states greater 'flexibility' in operating their welfare programs, the Obama administration claims unjustifiable authority to weaken or waive the work requirements at the heart of the reform law. There’s just one problem: The law is clear that those requirements can’t be waived. ... 

"To waive those requirements is to violate the 'workfare' law, the Constitution’s vesting of legislative power in the Congress, and the president’s fundamental duty to faithfully carry out all the laws."

"Lately President Obama has done everything except seduce an intern in his attempt to morph into Bill Clinton. In virtually every speech, he invokes Clinton’s name, trying to link his policies with those of the popular former president. He has even called upon Clinton to place Obama’s name in nomination at the Democratic National Convention. 
 
"But, try as he might, Barack Obama, is no Bill Clinton. ... 
 
"In the end, President Obama would increase taxes more than Bill Clinton did, and cut spending a lot less. ... 

"Given the last twelve years, a little Clinton nostalgia is understandable. But Bill Clinton will not be on the ballot this fall. Barack Obama will be, and that is a big difference."