Ron Johnson: The "Ayn Rand-loving" candidate

Via Scott Lemieux, this excerpt from a review of Jennifer Burns's 2009 biography of Ayn Rand, Goddess of the Market (Ayn Rand is the author of Ron Johnson's "foundational book," Atlas Shrugged):

Her diaries from that time, while she worked as a receptionist and an extra, lay out the Nietzschean mentality that underpins all her later writings.* The newspapers were filled for months with stories about [a] serial killer called William Hickman, who kidnapped a 12-year-old girl called Marion Parker from her junior high school, raped her, and dismembered her body, which he sent mockingly to the police in pieces. Rand wrote great stretches of praise for him, saying he represented "the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul. ... Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should." She called him "a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy," shimmering with "immense, explicit egotism." Rand had only one regret: "A strong man can eventually trample society under [his] feet. That boy [Hickman] was not strong enough."

And for admirers of Fox News/Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Ron Johnson, that "Ayn Rand-loving" is attached as a compliment.

Ugh.

* e.g., Atlas Shrugged.

What's up with these Ayn Rand people

Oft-hyped Ryan plan is a useless fraud — Paul Krugman

"It's like we're living in an Ayn Rand novel right now."
and Ron Johnson: The "Ayn Rand-loving" candidate.

Ayn Rand on the dole

Novelist secured SS and Medicare under an assumed name

And advised everybody else not to. How unique. Wisconsin politicians Paul Ryan and Ron Johnson are both very great fans of Ayn Rand.

Conway to demand GOP opponent's chest X-ray

And Prince Albert in a can
"Rand Paul keeps Christ in his heart."* — KYSEN political ad

I actually don't doubt the implication of the [Jack Conway] ad, namely that Rand Paul harbors a private contempt for Christianity. He's a devotee of Ayn Rand,** who is a fundamentally anti-Christian thinker.

— Jonathan Chait

That's putting it mildly. More to the point: Anti-Christ.

Nevertheless, Chait condemns Conway's ad because it "comes perilously close to saying that non-belief in Christianity is a disqualification for public office," which is an "illiberal" technique in politicking. Perhaps, but running as a Democrat in Kentucky these days calls for behaving in some respects like a Republican, and Republicans are notorious for these sorts of character attacks.

Maybe this little episode will teach them a lesson (not bloody likely).

More importantly, Jack Conway effectively rattled the living bejaysus out of Rand Paul. If that was the idea — and surely it was — it could scarcely have been more successful.

The current slew of GOP "citizen legislators" has about two weeks to keep from bursting into full-bore crazy. Can they handle it?

* Calling PolitiFact.

** We have a couple of those here too.

George Will's man love letter to Ron Johnson

Sheesh, get a room already:

Ron Johnson ... now is ablaze, in an understated, Upper Midwestern way. This 55-year-old manufacturer of plastic products from Oshkosh, Wis., is what the Tea Party looks like. He is trim, gray-haired and suddenly gray-suited. For years he has worn jeans and running shoes to his office, but now, under spousal duress, he is trying to look senatorial — "My wife upgraded me to brown shoes."

Ron Johnson tells the poor man's Roger Angell his "foundational book" is Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, which is not the Foundational Book you'd expect out of a pro-life Lutheran hailing from the Wisconsin heartland. Or is it. What the hell, there was no commandment about naked political pandering (even Noah of West Bend public school board fame did a little naked pandering, come to think of it).

And Johnson thinks the tome — whose author's opinion of religion makes PZ Myers look like Francis of Assisi — is "too short,"* which is actually a pretty great line. But he also thought Terrence Wall and Dave Westlake were a couple pages too long, so he tore their campaign posters down (which he now says reporters made him do).

Johnson may be even more entertaining than Rand Paul.

Asked how much of his wealth he will spend, if necessary, [Johnson's] answer is as simple as it is swift: "All of it."

Remember: No bailouts, no entitlements.

* Its relentless, one-note tedium exceeds 1,000 pages.

Paul Ryan confirms moral superiority of atheist

"It's as if we're living in an Ayn Rand novel right now."

h/t Paul Ryan Watch.

Canada's socialist envoys to headline Summerfest

Rush has sold more than 40 million records worldwide. Rush is third behind the Beatles and the Rolling Stones for the most consecutive gold or platinum studio albums by a rock band.

I knew they were monsters, but I did not know that.

I wonder if those are Canadian gold or platinum, which you get for 10% of units shipped compared to what you need to sell in the U.S. (Canadian gold is 50K, Stateside it's 500K).

And I haven't kept up on it, but there used to be federal Canadian content laws according to which commercial radio stations had to play a mandated percentage of Canadian acts. There's no question Rush benefited from those Marxist commands which is funny because drummer Neil Peart's lyrics are mostly derived from Ayn Rand novels.

(Rep. Paul Ryan will be camping out for tickets.)

Apart from a few early numbers Rush's screaming, bombastic sci-fi pretentiousness always drove me crazy despite each and every member being superb musicians (especially Neil Peart). I much prefer Rush's sometime collaborators and touring mates Max Webster, who I expect are virtually unknown south of the Tundra.*

They put out a couple of minor masterpieces in the late 70s, Max Webster and High Class In Borrowed Shoes. Check 'em out.

Summerfest should talk them into reuniting.

* Although I see Max Webster's frontman-gone-solo Kim Mitchell went to #86 on the Billboard Hot 100 with "Go For Soda." (I would have guessed "Patio Lanterns" but it only made the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, whatever that might be. Both catchy tunes complete with suitably fromage-infused [literally: there's cheese in that fridge] 80s videos. Considerably less heavy and less harmonically dexterous than Max Webster was, however.)

Ron Johnson: It's not a subsidy

Or: Johnson Shrugged is my foundational book

UPDATE: RoJo's federal grant-in-choo choo FOB D.C.

Item: Johnson's company got government loan — WKOW 27

"An industrial revenue bond is neither special treatment nor a government payment or subsidy," shrugged Johnson's campaign.

"Typically, interest rates on [industrial revenue bonds] may be from 1.5 to 2.5 percentage points below corporate bonds," said the Wisconsin Department of Commerce.

That interest differential is neither special treatment nor a subsidy? It's clearly a cost savings, generously facilitated by the state, and it stays in its fortunate beneficiary's pants pocket.

"Today Johnson rails against government subsidies, saying they go against the free-enterprise system. 'I'm in business,' Johnson shrugged. 'I have never lobbied for some special treatment or for a government payment.'"

The business can initiate the process by discussing its project with a Department of Commerce Area Development Manager and completing a Prospect Data Sheet. The business should retain the services of bond counsel and its lender to determine the project's feasibility. The business should also meet with representatives of the municipality where the project is to be located.

That's not lobbying? Complete with "bond counsel"?

Federal law defines eligible projects.

There's at least one gummint regulation Ron Johnson has enjoyed.

Good for Ron Johnson. But it's kind of unseemly for a beneficiary of state largesse to be crying about the many evils of state largesse.

After all, what would Ayn Rand say?

Ron Johnson calls Wisconsin workers "losers"

John Nichols reports from Ron Johnson's harsh Randian universe.

And the buggy whip business moved to Nebraska.

Earlier: Ron Johnson manages to offend everybody.

"Ron Johnson calls Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged his 'foundational book.'"

— George F. Will

Is Ron Johnson puffing his Twitter account?

Some of Tea Party Republican Ron Johnson's 296 followers:





















Okay, that last one is probably real.* And maybe Ron Johnson just doesn't want to abridge JustinBieberRu's freedom of speech.

* But likely not a disciple of Ayn Rand.

Dave Westlake seizes the Tea

Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Dave Westlake leaped into the breech Wednesday, understudying for his missing GOP primary election rival Ron Johnson at a Tea Party affair in Madison, WI.

Westlake stressed his hard-right credentials by calling for the repeal of the Patriot Act, a position staked out by Russ Feingold in 2001.

(Dave Westlake's "blaze orange" campaign theme also appropriates Senator Feingold's position with respect to the Second Amendment, which is slightly to the right of the National Rifle Association's.)

Ron Johnson had canceled the Madison Tea Party engagement after disappearing earlier in the week when a set of YouTubes emerged showing Johnson struggling defensively to explain fundamental policy perspectives to a local group called the Rock River Patriots.

Candidate Johnson, 55, admitted to the Patriots he'd only been through the U.S. Constitution "five or six times" and that he discovered it to be "not an easy document to read." Yet almost simultaneously, he assured them he'd "take to Washington a very deep reverence for the genius of the Founding Fathers."

But the Patriots were skeptical.

Westlake is one of two Republican candidates whose election posters were torn down from the wall by Ron Johnson and his posse at the Party's State convention in Milwaukee last month, where Johnson received the Official Establishment Republican Party Endorsement.

At the time, nobody knew anything about Johnson except that he reportedly had $10-$15 million to spend and his "foundational book" was Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged (not — oddly — the Bible).

Whereas Dave Westlake had been campaigning assiduously for months, and must have chafed at seeing his poster crumpled and discarded so that Johnson might have a blank wall to stand in front of for the teevee cameras.

Johnson said he decided to run when beloved Fox "News" personality Dick Morris put out a random call for "some rich guy in Wisconsin."

Meanwhile abortion outfit Wisconsin Right to Life endorsed Ron Johnson yesterday, despite Johnson's consent to a broad range of exceptions for the procedure, including the "true life" of the mother. Candidate Westlake said he would allow for no such exceptions.

WRtL determined that Johnson was the more "electable" candidate, proving the abortion opponents' devotion to situational morality. Moreover, situational morality in service of political expediency.

On principle, WRtL's embracing Westlake seems the correct choice.

Ron Johnson remains in hiding, assessing his troubled candidacy.

Ron Johnson sets Ayn Rand rotating in her crypt

Who is Ron Galt? — Johnson Shrugged, Preface by G.F. Will

Federal grant monies laid RoJo's choo choo track — WKOW 27

I'm afraid there's no denying that that is a state subsidy.

Q. Is Ron Johnson's latest press secretary entitled to danger pay?

Johnson easy to paint*

As an extremist, because he is an extremist.

I wonder how many of those Tea Party Republicans whose Foundational Book is Atlas Shrugged realize that Ayn Rand's philosophy is informed by a visceral, Nietzschean hatred for what they more often preach to us as "Christian Values."

* If you arrived at this post in error, try Milwaukee's Tool Shed.

Ambitious Walker advances to violating federal law

Violating Wisconsin constitution unsatisfying

Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. — Jesus

Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to privatize work determining who is eligible for food assistance in the state would violate federal law and could expose the state to a loss of more than $20 million in federal money, federal officials say.

Money for food stamps. Thanks, "Tea Party."

"I really think there's a reason why God put all these political thoughts in my head," said Walker of his "Walk with Christ."

Thanks for Ron "Either ignorant or lying" Johnson also.

This is what you get for electing Ayn Rand's disciples.

Federal takeover of health care well underway

Ron Johnson promises to "repeal" all of this medical research.

For why? Because: "It's the single greatest assault on [his] Freedom in [his] lifetime." That's what Ron Johnson has said. Many, many times.

Ron Johnson's inspiration Ayn Rand called it the Virtue of Selfishness.

One firm that received $1.2M is Geron Corp., which is conducting the first trial therapies for quadriplegics using embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells are derived from surplus in-vitro fertilizations that would otherwise be discarded. Johnson promised that is the first project he would abandon. We'll let him inform the quadriplegics.

Quadriplegia, I am willing to bet, is a far greater assault on freedom than any of Ron Johnson's insipid Fox News Channel talking points.

One square blockhead surrounded by reality

That would be Sunny Schubert, among the "columnists" retained by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel to "elevate the level of discussion," who vilifies the homeless* as "squalid squatters" while choosing to heap praise on — I'm not making this up — "big corporations" like Home Depot.

Presumably because a Sub-Zero carton makes adequate living quarters.

On the other hand, perhaps David Haynes and his friends on the daily paper's editorial board are to be commended for providing a platform to let conservatives make themselves look as foolish as humanly possible.**

Sunny Schubert, incidentally, is the same one who inaugurated Haynes's project with the admonition, "Dems should shut up." Yes indeed. Just kick back and marvel at Sunny Schubert's comic lack of self-awareness.

* A lot of these folks suffer from mental illnesses, so Sunny Schubert's Republican ravings are more insidious and heartless than they appear.

Not that that should come as any surprise, where one of the Grand Old Party's current golden boys is an enthusiastic disciple of Ayn Rand.

** The one who is to be commended is Caryl Davis — whose name the Journal-Sentinel's editors can't even spell correctly: they advertise her as "Carol" Davis — who made one post and apparently fled the scene.

Wisely.