Last night Upworthy told me about a New Trending Twitter Account ... Paul Ryan Gosling's Hey Girl meme. I found it amusing, but I didn't understand the nuance of why it was so funny to a lot of people. I just found tweets like this amusing:
I'm an over-50 woman, and I just don't keep up with all of the trends that young woman today are interested in. Heck, I have to use the Urban Dictionary to translate some of the things my teenaged niece posts on Facebook. Fortunately, I turned on The Rachel Maddow Show tonight and learned how the Hey Girl meme started.
What a day. The Obama campaign put out two fantastic videos. One was a response to Romney's lies about welfare and an ad about College Tuition featuring Romney's "Borrow Money from your parents" line. And yet, people were asking, "Where's the ad about Medicare?" I assume they wanted President Obama to respond to the ad Romney released lying about President Obama and Medicare. I'm sure the Obama Team will be coming out with a great ad very soon. Meanwhile, please take some time to learn about the fact that Medicare is not the only extreme position that we can tie Paul Ryan to. It turns out that he has extreme positions on many social issues, especially those important to women.
When Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate, he was probably hoping and thinking that everybody would only think of Paul Ryan as being famous for that one thing he's really famous for, for being the Republican's young budget wonk guy. Well it's Day Four of Paul Ryan's vice presidential run and that no longer appears to be the only thing he's famous for. Starting off with a 15 point deficit among women voters, the Romney campaign is now coming to grips with the fact that they are about to nominate for vice president the man who brought forth the national version of Virginia's forced ultrasound bill, and the national version of the personhood bill that would ban most popular forms of birth control in this country, and that couldn't even pass in Mississippi.
Throughout most of this first portion of the segment, Rachel was laughing and giggling. Her geekiness was shining through as she enjoyed explaining all the Internet memes leading up to the ones that make Paul Ryan the punchline at the end of the latest memes that have started appearing in the Internet over the last four days.
Do you know the actor, Ryan Gosling? A few years ago ... I can't believe it was a few years ago ... but it was a couple of of years ago, a fan site for Ryan Gosling popped up online and became an instant hit. It changed the world online. The site had kind of a profane name that I will not repeat here. But needless to say, it specialized in photos of Ryan Gosling looking very handsome, and those photos were paired with sweet and funny taglines, superimposed over the photo as if they were word bubbles; things he was saying.
Like this one where Mr. Gosling says, Hey Girl, I was just thinking about how awesome you are. Or this one, Hey Girl, I heard you like saving the environment and gas money so I got a hybrid. This one, Hey girl, I heard you like beards so I grew one last night.
If you have not seen the original Ryan Gosling version that started it all, you have probably seen some of the spinoffs. For example, there is the feminist version of the Ryan Gosling Hey Girl meme. At the Feminist Ryan Gosling site he still says Hey Girl but it comes out like this, Hey girl. The post-feminist fetishization of motherhood is deeply rooted in classism but I still think we'd make cute babies. Or, Hey girl. Gender is a social construct but everyone likes to cuddle. Or Hey girl. You built a room of your own and a room in my heart. The Ryan Gosling Hey Girl meme has even intersected with other internet memes over the time.
Like, remember the Texts from Hillary thing, from earlier this year? See at the bottom there, Hillary Clinton text message conversation, her texting from that bad-ass military plane? So her text message conversations are imagineered onto a photo of her on that military plane. And here's the one with her and Ryan Gosling. Ryan Gosling texts her, Hey Girl... and she responds It's Madame Secretary. There's also a Ryan Gosling Hey Girl meme for librarians. There's one for museums. There's one where he specifically talks only about how much he loves National Public Radio. But the Hey Girl thing has spread even beyond Ryan Gosling.
Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, has been the subject of a Hey Girl fan site since roughly April. On the fan site he is shown saying funny things about the budget while looking cute.
But now that Paul Ryan is not just a congressman from Wisconsin. Now that he is the presumptive Republican nominee for vice president, now Paul Ryan's Hey Girl meme has gone a whole new direction. As in, Hey Girl, you're pretty fine, but fertilized eggs should have more rights than you. xo-Paul Ryan, or Hey Girl, Got birth control? Not for long. xo-Paul Ryan, or Hey Girl, I'm the last choice you'll ever be allowed to make. xo-Paul Ryan. Or this one, Hey Girl, I'm from the 1970s, but my ideas about your body are from the 1950s. xoxo-Paul Ryan. Hmmm, Hey Girl, you'll love my choices for your body. xoxo-Paul Ryan. The folks behind the new Hey Girl Paul Ryan website made themselves known at a campaign event for Congressman Ryan today in Colorado. They made themselves known by way of an airplane trailing a banner behind it. CNBC's Eamon Javers noticed it during the event and tweeted a photo of it. It's a little hard to read at this distance, but the banner being towed behind the airplane says, Hey girl, choose me, lose choice. P. Ryan [See Paul Ryan mocked with internet meme at campaign event, The Raw Story, August 14, 2012].
But there's even more to the Paul Ryan/Ryan Gosling mash-up Internet meme right now. There's now a twitter account registered to Paul Ryan Gosling. Paul Ryan Gosling's recent tweets include, Hey girl, you look so cute when you're losing your reproductive rights, and Hey girl, I would have voted for the Fair Pay Act, but Lilly Ledbetter? I hardly know her!
At his event today in Colorado, the same one towing the Hey girl, choose me, lose choice, banner, the same one with the banner flying past, the folks at Politico.com got word of a Paul Ryan themed prank at the event. You had to submit your name in order to get an admission ticket to the event. An admission ticket for the event was issued to somebody who said their name was Fertilized Egg. See there it is on the ticket, Name of attendee, Fertilized Egg. And if you look at who ordered the ticket for Fertilized Egg, it says the name of the person who ordered the ticket was Fertzie Eggers [See 'Fertilized Egg' admitted to Ryan event, Politico.com, August 14, 2012].
At this point, Rachel gets serious. This is serious stuff, after all. A lot of people have been talking about Ryan's radical plans for Medicare if the Republicans were to be able to gain control of the White House and Congress, what most of the MSM isn't talking about right now, and Rachel was probably one of the first to talk about (as this
diary about Monday night's show describes) since becoming the presumptive Republican nominee for vice president, is Ryan's extreme, radical views on abortion, birth control and even in vitro fertilization. Oh yeah, and did you know he was a co-sponsor of a national forced ultrasound bill?
What all this is about with Paul Ryan is this. The whole idea of Fertzie Eggers. The whole idea of Fertilized Egg being declared a person for political purposes really has special resonance in Colorado where this event was today. The personhood for fertilized eggs idea is the ragged, radical edge of the anti-abortion movement in this country this year. Declaring a fertilized egg to be a person, is a way to not just crack down on abortion rights, but to criminalize all abortion in every circumstance with no exceptions, and to criminalize everything else that could conceivably affect an egg that has been fertilized. That doesn't just mean criminalizing all abortion. It goes beyond that and likely means, according to the personhood people, it likely means criminalizing emergency contraception, criminalizing the most popular forms of birth control in the country, hormonal birth control, it would certainly mean criminalizing the IUD, which trust me, someone you know is using right now to keep themselves from getting pregnant. It would criminalize most in vitro fertilization even, because that type of fertility treatment involves fertilizing eggs, not all of which end up being babies.
And so, for example, three of Mitt Romney's sons who have reportedly had some of their children using in vitro fertilization, like lots of people have, would be considered murderers if personhood passed [See 2 New Grandchildren for Romney, With Help of Surrogate, The New York Times, May 4, 2012]. Because you think in vitro fertilization could make them murderers of eggs, eggs that were fertilized for the purpose of the fertility treatment and then did not become babies. Mother Jones published a very challenging, sobering piece on that today [See Ryan Sponsored Abortion Bill That Would Make Romney's Kids Criminals, Mother Jones, August 14, 2012].
Even for people who are super, super anti-abortion, the personhood thing is seen as kind of nuts. I mean, personhood is remembered as the thing that was too radical even for the hugely anti-abortion conservative electorate in Mississippi last year. Right? I mean Mississippi voted personhood down by double-digits when it was on the ballot there last Fall. Even the National Right to Life Committee said what they were trying to do in Mississippi was too radical. The National Right to Life Committee called it a waste of time [See 'Personhood' Divides Anti-Abortion Groups, NPR, November 9, 2011].
And not only did personhood lose in Mississippi in 2011, it also lost in 2010 when it was on the ballot in Colorado. That was after it lost in 2008 [26.7% Yes, 73.2% No] when it was on the ballot in Colorado. And the reason that it is such a hot issue today at the Paul Ryan Colorado event attended by Fertzie Eggers and friends, is because it looks like personhood is going to be on the ballot again this year in Colorado, even though it has lost by 40 plus point margins there, twice already [see Signatures turned in for Colorado anti-abortion measure, The Denver Post, August 6, 2012].
And personhood for fertilized eggs, banning contraception, banning all abortion, banning in vitro fertilization ... it may be too radical for Mississippi, it may be too radical for Colorado, but the Republican vice presidential nominee this year is the guy who sponsored personhood for the whole country. Paul Ryan co-sponsored a national ban on contraception, on all abortion and on in vitro fertilization [See Bill Text, 112th Congress (2011-2012), H.R.212.IH]. When Paul Ryan was on Meet the Press back in February, David Gregory asked him whether the Republican Party was maybe focusing too much on contraception; maybe that might hurt them in November. Paul Ryan's answers as to whether he was concerned about that was, No.
These last couple of years have seen a really big rollback of American women's reproductive rights. And it's been a departure from the just constant fighting about abortion that has always been happening at some level in our politics. Over the last couple of years, Republicans have been fighting issues that everybody thought were settled even as we kept arguing about abortion. I mean they've been rolling back rights over these last couple of years that American women had been taking for granted at this point. It's not just regulating abortion, it is banning abortion at certain time periods and not allowing exceptions for rape victims and incest victims, something that nine states have done over the last two years. Going after rape victims and incest victims.
It's voting to get rid of the entire federal family planning assistance program, Title X. It's voting to defund Planned Parenthood to block women from getting cancer screenings, and check-ups and birth control [See House votes to block all funding to Planned Parenthood, The Washington Independent, February 18, 2011]. It's fighting against access to contraception [See Republicans say contraception-rule fight is not over, Politico.com, February 14, 2012]. It's not just regulating abortion here and there. It's wholesale efforts to shut down access to abortion all together with targeted regulations. It's no exceptions for rape and incest. It's rolling back access to contraception. This last couple of years Republicans have been more active, more aggressive and more radical on this issue than at any time since Roe vs. Wade was decided.
And they have been successful at what they've been trying to do. Last year Republicans passed a record number of new abortion restrictions in the states. They enacted 131 new anti-abortion laws just since the 2010 elections. It is unprecedented in the history of legal abortion in this country, and it has had a material affect on women's lives. There was a stomach churning article in The Texas Tribune this week about abortion access now being so restrictive in Texas that Texas women are crossing the border into Mexico, visiting unregulared Mexican pharmacies, and then self-medicating with drugs that they hope might induce abortion; taking these drugs without doctors' prescriptions, without instructions from doctors on how to use them, at risk to their lives and their health. For women living near the Mexican border, back-alley abortions are back, and the new back-alley is across the border in Mexico [See Looking to Mexico for an Alternative to Abortion Clinics, The New York Times, August 11, 2012].
But even as Republicans have been able to go father in restricting these rights now than at any time in the last forty years, there have been some things that are still just a bridge too far. Like the personhood thing, for example. Right? The personhood thing came nowhere near passing, not even in Mississippi. It was too far. We talked on this show last night about how Republican candidates in Colorado this year, even the ones who supported personhood the last time around, they are sprinting away from it as fast as they can this time around. They can read the polls. They know personhood is a bridge too far. The other thing that has been a bridge too far, is the idea of forced ultrasounds. Forced ultrasounds is something that Republicans actually did get passed last year in Texas and this year in Louisiana and Arizona and in Virginia.
But not until in Virginia there was a national furor over it, and that gave Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell's national profile, a national profile that scuttled any chances he had of being picked as Mitt Romney's vice president. A Washington Post column back in February talking about how he fell off the short list for vice president because of the ultrasound fight he got himself into in Virginia. Assuming that the Republican presidential candidate is Mitt Romney, it would be much harder for him now to tap [Bob] McDonnell as a running mate. The two of them would immediately have to devote time to defending the ultrasound bill ... “I think the moment in the sun is over,” said a Republican source ... The ultrasound controversy "was probably very unhelpful to the calculus that Romney will make at the convention" [See Abortion bill hurt McDonnell’s V.P. prospects, The Washington Post, February 29, 2012]. Bob McDonnell in Virginia made the mistake of becoming nationally famous for his stance on his state's ultrasound bill and that made him politically untouchable and toxic on the national stage.
Do you want to know who co-sponsored the national version of the Bob McDonnell forced ultrasound bill? Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin [See Bill Text, 112th Congress (2011-2012), H.R.3805.IH and Bill Summary & Status indicating Rep Ryan, Paul [WI-1] became a co-sponsor on February 16, 2012]. Republicans tried this forced ultrasound thing in a lot of states. The only reason it didn't end up going through in Pennsylvania, for example, was because Governor Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania got caught on tape explaining in that way he has that there is an avert your eyes provision in that state's version of the bill.
[Video of Tom Corbett being interviewed]
Question: ... making them watch ... does that go too far in your mind?
Tom Corbett: I don't know how you make anybody watch. Okay, cause you just have to close your eyes.
You just have to close your eyes. Governor Tom Corbett explaining that is part of the reason that Pennsylvania did not get the forced ultrasound bill. Paul Ryan's bill for a national forced ultrasound law? It has the exact same avert your eyes clause. You can see it actually in the bill. Do we have it there, yeah. It's a sub-section of the bill called, Ability to turn eyes away. That's who the Republicans picked for their vice presidential nominee. I think they did it because they thought people would not notice these things about his record. It's not what he was known for before. It is what he is getting known for now. Very quickly.
Karen Finney, former Communications Director for the DNC joins us next.
Wow! I've got to tell you. I watch Rachel Maddow a lot, but near the end there she became very somber. Actually, typing all that, I became very somber too. I laughed when
Charles Blow explained what makes little bombs going off in Republican minds. For the first time since I saw that wonderful rant on MSNBC I actually know what it feels like to have little bombs go off in my Democratic mind. OMG! Seriously? Bob McDonnell lost the chance of becoming the vice presidential running mate because he was nationally known as
Governor Ultrasound, and Mitt Romney actually thought nobody would look at Paul Ryan's record on social issues? I want some of what Romney's been inhaling.
Part 2: The Interview
During the commercial break, Rachel seems to have shaken loose of her somber attitude, and attacked the next segment with vigor.
When Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate, he was probably hoping and thinking that everybody would only think of Paul Ryan as being famous for that one thing he's really famous for, for being the Republican's young budget wonk guy. Well it's Day Four of Paul Ryan's vice presidential run and that no longer appears to be the only thing he's famous for. Starting off with a 15 point deficit among women voters, the Romney campaign is now coming to grips with the fact that they are about to nominate for vice president the man who brought forth the national version of Virginia's forced ultrasound bill, and the national version of the personhood bill that would ban most popular forms of birth control in this country, and that couldn't even pass in Mississippi. Joining us now is Karen Finney, MSNBC political analyst, and columnist for The Hill. Karen is the former Communications Director for the Democratic Party. It's nice to see you. Thank you for being here.
KF: Good to see you.
RM: I'm resisting the urge to say, Hey Girl.
KF: Go on, just do it. You know you wanna.
RM: It sounds like I'm reading a script when I do it, so I can't even do it. Let me ask you, though. If you think that these quick out of the blocks efforts to make Paul Ryan famous for this are going to stick, or if you think this just sort of reflects a certain spunkiness on the part of pro-choice advocates.
KF: I think that pro-choice advocates, and frankly Democrats, progressives, have understood for a long time, certainly when it came to Governor Romney, that one of the things we've seen in polling early on, people think that he's more moderate than he is. And so I think they saw that coming. And then with Paul Ryan we know that similarly, people think he's more moderate on the social issues like a lot of frankly younger Republicans actually are, who are more modern on social issues but who are, consider themselves more conservative on these fiscal issues. And one of the things that the Republican Party likes about Paul Ryan, as you were talking about, he de-emphasizes ... that's their phrase, that's how they like to talk about it ... the social issues. So I think there was an understanding early on, you have to get out of the box very quickly, in this period where we know a majority of Americans don't really even know who this person is, that when we're defining him, we cannot reach election day with people not understanding how severe his opinions on these issues and his positions frankly on the issues really are.
RM: Well, there has been a dry run for this already in this campaign, which is that Mitt Romney has also de-emphasized social issues. Even during the primary, I'd say the pseudo social issue which he was willing to talk about a lot was being really anti-immigration. But beyond that, he really wasn't willing to talk much about gay rights, abortion rights, some of these other issues. The Democrats have tried very hard to fill in that blank in Mitt Romney's record. The Obama Campaign, I think, has run a surprising number of ads overtly about his record on choice. Was that successful and is that the same template they follow on Ryan?
KF: I think it's absolutely been successful and it will be the same template that they follow for Ryan. Because here's the miscalculation that I think the Republicans have made on women, that I think the Democrats have actually understood. Women see a lot of these issues. These aren't just issues that sort of, of equal rights, and sort of talking to us like we're not equal human beings, which is totally offensive in the first place. Right? But I don't know when I've been raped? I mean, come on. At the same time, though, there are economic issues. Every woman that I know who is on birth control, knows exactly how much she pays for it. And she knows that's money that's not going to something else. You know, particularly when you talk with voters. I've done focus groups where mothers will say, Okay, I can either get my car fixed or get my kid's teeth fixed, but I need my car to go to work to pay for the dentist in the first place. So when people are living that close to the edge, when we talk about Medicare where 56% of Medicare recipients are women and we talk about voucherizing that program, or when we talk about Social Security. We talk about anything. You know, the Ryan Budget that will cut all of the programs that frankly a lot of women rely on, women understand that as an economic issue, not just an equality issue.
RM: Karen, you are an authority on how Democrats think and talk. You were an official Democrat talker for a long part of your career. Put yourself in the mindset of a Republican advising Romney and Ryan on this. Would you tell them to run from Ryan's record on these issues? With Romney, he, for example, said he was absolutely in favor of personhood, this Mississippi bill that has all of these implications. They've run from his record on that. I don't think very successfully, but they've tried. Will they do that on Ryan and should they?
KF: Absolutely. Remember, he's an extreme conservative, that Governor Romney. And I ...
RM: Severe.
KF: Severe. Yes, severe. Yeah. Absolutely. They're going to continue ... But I think what they'll do, is very smart. I think they'll microtarget this issue, meaning they will figure out which voters do we really need to communicate that message to. Because, remember when Mitt Romney was asked, for example, about Sandra Fluke, he said, Well, I wouldn't use that language. So he knows sometimes you have to cool it, and then other times, you've got to make sure that you're communicating to your base with those dog whistles.
RM: Yeah, and if they're successful in microtargeting it and not making it a national story, when they do choose to address this issue, that will mean that the Internet and social media have failed. I don't think that will happen.
KF: That's right, that can't happen.
RM: Hey girl, Karen Finney, Thank you very much for being here. I really appreciate it.
I don't think we need to worry too much about microtargeting these issues and not making them a national story. That
Paul Ryan Gosling twitter account was started on Saturday. When I first saw it on Monday night, there were 28,000 followers. Tuesday afternoon when I wrote a diary about it, there were over 35,500 followers. It's now just nine hours later and there are over 40,500 followers. Hopefully, after you've read this diary, and if you use Twitter, you will be a follower too.
If you are a Twitter user, be sure to share this and other information you've learned here using the hashtags: #ChooseRyanLoseChoice and #HeyGirl and #PaulRyanFacts.