Paul Ryan.... Really??

[Tim Bonney]

It appears that Mitt has chosen Paul Ryan as his running mate. All I can think of is Really??

[Haruo]

I can think of several other possible comments, like "Huh?" and "Umm... wow!" and "Weird!" I don't know what he's trying to do with this selection. Life insurance? He's right, of course, that Paul Ryan is light years more intellectual than Sarah Palin.

[Haruo]

It may shift part of the "legalize marijuana, I don't care about abortion" single-issue block into his camp. And it will certainly make the rest of the campaign more... interesting.

[[edited half an hour later]]

I thought it was Ron Paul they were talking about. I doubt if Paul Ryan will bring in the token toke vote.

Both candidates are religiously committed to male-ruled power structures, so the feminists and egalitarians will probably not be rushing over.

[Sandy]

That sound you heard was the shifting of the remaining fence sitting moderates and independents moving to Obama. This election year may become known as the "Great Republican Foot Shooting Contest." With the polls already showing a shift of undecideds to the President, Romney makes a choice that alienates most senior citizens, and most of the rest of the middle class.

Maybe that's why he never got half the support of the GOP in the primaries. I'll bet we see a "Dump Mitt" movement before the convention.

[Haruo]

[Tim Bonney]

If the President didn't pop a bottle of champagne after this announcement it was only because he couldn't stop laughing long enough to order one.

While Ryan certainly is smarter than Palin he actually has even less governing experience than Palin. Yep, less!

Yep, rich and out of touch Thurstan Howell III chooses a far right wing and out of touch running mate. LOL

[KeithE]

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: I can live with the increase on Keith's chart that represents us. Romney still Get my vote although I know little to nothing about his running mate. I will check the news at 5:00 to find out the reaction of the many republicans in this area. Despite his visits to this area, two this year, Obama is not real popular up here.

[Big Daddy Weaver]

Ryan helps rally the base - at least the portion of the base that is serious about economic policy.

To many folks more inclined to vote for Obama, "Paul Ryan" is a bad word. So Ryan gives a boost to the GOP's base and gives a big boost to Obama's base (especially among people that work with practically any social service organization (faith-based or secular), hunger, social workers, etc.).

So, I'm not sure how Ryan helps Romney?

I've seen some GOP strategists on Twitter like Joe Carter (formerly of the Huckabee campaign) who think this move shows that Romney's campaign is incompetent.

I guess if losing in November is inevitable, Romney has made a move to ensure that the GOP base won't hate him afterward?

Pawlenty and Portman were safe choices. I think Portman could have given Romney the boost to win Ohio (which is a must-win for Romney but not necessarily a must-win for Obama). If you were going to go out of the box, Rubio or Jindal made sense. Rubio could have been a big help long-term for the GOP.

Unfortunately, it looks like the Sarah Palin experience has probably set back women for a decade or so. Someone like Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas would have been a great fit. But she and other women weren't seriously considered this time around due to the Palin backlash.

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

BDW, you mentioned several better choices for VP than Ryan. I'm almost as flabbergasted at Ryan's choice as I was at Palin's choice. Where are GOP candidates getting advice from these days? I don't see Ryan bringing in any new votes. Sure the GOP conservative base likes him but they were already voting Romney anyway. So what is the strategy here?

[Sandy]

I'm not sure how much a VP choice actually helps a ticket outside the various party constituencies. There are those who think that it could make a difference in terms of picking up a state and its electoral votes. In this case, Ryan has avoided running for a senate seat in predominantly Democratic Wisconsin, precisely because he can't get the statewide support he would need. The political scientists and experts have all said that the key to a Romney victory is being able to win moderate independent voters, make inroads among Latino voters and carry the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida. I think the choice the President's campaign people feared the most was Marco Rubio. Rubio might not deliver a lot of moderate independents, but he would have helped with Latinos and with carrying Florida. The choice of Ryan either delivers the moderate indpendents and hispanics wholesale to Obama, or at least keeps them from the polls supporting the GOP. Ryan's position on what he calls "entitlements" will kill Romney's chances with older voters, and thus widen Obama's margin, already 6 percentage points in the polls, in Florida. The right wing of the Republican party doesn't deliver Ohio or Pennsylvania, either. So I don't really understand this move. If they need a VP choice to "energize" the economic conservatives, then they were in big trouble before he made this choice. Perhaps the only choice that would have been worse than this would have been Palin.

[Haruo]

Of course, maybe the goal is to neutralize Ryan's lauded intellect and policy commitments by putting him in an office where he will have little to no (make that "no") actual power and where even his voice will be muffled by the nature and reputation of the office.

[Tim Bonney]

[Matto]

What frightens many is Paul Ryan's Catholicism. Someone who will defend life, and marriage is scary to the culture of death and immorality.
If Kennedy was alive he would not support abortion or so called " gay marriage". The whole thing would have disgusted him.
A good conservative Catholic president is just what America needs. A good Catholic president that will bring all his Catholic values to the Office.

[Matto]

[Tim Bonney]

[KeithE]

If I were Obama I would use this opportunity to court the evangelical vote with pronouncements of caring for “the least of these” - actual emphases of Jesus. But then if elected actually come through with “bringing good news to the poor”.

Of course I’m writing in Rocky Anderson who I know will help the poor by promoting jobs/cheaper but universally available health care, bring fiscal sanity, avoid costly (lives and $$$s) overseas bullying, end Gitmo, and provide some leadership in global warming so that we can "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”.

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

Joe Biden...Really??

[KeithE]

[Tim Bonney]

[Haruo]

[William Thornton]