The dead of night announcement of Ryan as vice president was a dead giveaway the Romney camp just doesn't care anymore.
They're months into a running a terrible campaign. They're trying desperately to humanize a gaffe-prone robot. Their economic plan is a bumper stick sprinkled with fairy dust. Their foreign policy boils down to incinerating Iran and taking the child leash off Israel (and some hilarious post cold war pablum about Russia as public enemy #1). Their domestic policy caters to the Christian taliban and tells the poor to fuck off.
Oh and their poll numbers suck. Anyone surprised?
What will they do breathe life into their plodding march of failure? Make it worse.
John McCain suffered from a similar problem. The response was a circus stunt that wrote the book on how to torpedo a presidential campaign. Romney's people are apparently slow learners.
Traditional wisdom advises a couple things. First nominate someone who shores up your policy weaknesses. Romney's platform is across-the-board awful. But his tone deaf "we'll keep the ship afloat by hitting the iceberg harder" economic plan is the worst. The second is to pick someone non-controversial, someone who compliments the candidate, and doesn't steal their spotlight.
In Paul Ryan, they managed to fail at all these things.
Romney has been extraordinary in his vanilla-ness, his ability to not have a concrete answer to anything. How will he pay for his tax cuts? What will he replace the Affordable Care Act with? What was his effective tax rate prior to 2010?
Ryan doesn't have a problem dotting his i's and crossing his t's. His answers are specific, and they specifically suck. His "Road to Prosperity" was shredded by virtually every economist from the CBO on down. His plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program was so unpopular he fled from his own town halls. And Romney's people think Ryan will play better to a national audience?
Secondly Ryan will draw attention away from Romney. Romney's campaign couldn't pick an old boring white guy for VP because they already had one. Portman or Pawlenty would have been safer picks. Instead they repeated the blunder of 2008 and went for the shot of adrenaline. Good or bad, reporters will be talking about Ryan's budget, not Romney. The right wing hails Ryan as a rock star. But they have a habit of conflating obnoxiousness with celebrity. Ryan's budget hadn't been tried because no one else had the balls. That and the numbers didn't add up. Gutsily doing something stupid doesn't make it any less stupid.
In picking Paul Ryan Mitt hitched his wagon to a toxic figure known for wanting to throw granny off the cliff. The selection will fill in blanks on Romeny's platform. Too bad they're the wrong answers. This will invite fresh scrutiny of just how awful the Ryan budget is. Maybe when it's all said and done, voters will see Ryan for the economic Milli Vanilli he is.
They're months into a running a terrible campaign. They're trying desperately to humanize a gaffe-prone robot. Their economic plan is a bumper stick sprinkled with fairy dust. Their foreign policy boils down to incinerating Iran and taking the child leash off Israel (and some hilarious post cold war pablum about Russia as public enemy #1). Their domestic policy caters to the Christian taliban and tells the poor to fuck off.
Oh and their poll numbers suck. Anyone surprised?
What will they do breathe life into their plodding march of failure? Make it worse.
John McCain suffered from a similar problem. The response was a circus stunt that wrote the book on how to torpedo a presidential campaign. Romney's people are apparently slow learners.
Traditional wisdom advises a couple things. First nominate someone who shores up your policy weaknesses. Romney's platform is across-the-board awful. But his tone deaf "we'll keep the ship afloat by hitting the iceberg harder" economic plan is the worst. The second is to pick someone non-controversial, someone who compliments the candidate, and doesn't steal their spotlight.
In Paul Ryan, they managed to fail at all these things.
Romney has been extraordinary in his vanilla-ness, his ability to not have a concrete answer to anything. How will he pay for his tax cuts? What will he replace the Affordable Care Act with? What was his effective tax rate prior to 2010?
Ryan doesn't have a problem dotting his i's and crossing his t's. His answers are specific, and they specifically suck. His "Road to Prosperity" was shredded by virtually every economist from the CBO on down. His plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program was so unpopular he fled from his own town halls. And Romney's people think Ryan will play better to a national audience?
Secondly Ryan will draw attention away from Romney. Romney's campaign couldn't pick an old boring white guy for VP because they already had one. Portman or Pawlenty would have been safer picks. Instead they repeated the blunder of 2008 and went for the shot of adrenaline. Good or bad, reporters will be talking about Ryan's budget, not Romney. The right wing hails Ryan as a rock star. But they have a habit of conflating obnoxiousness with celebrity. Ryan's budget hadn't been tried because no one else had the balls. That and the numbers didn't add up. Gutsily doing something stupid doesn't make it any less stupid.
In picking Paul Ryan Mitt hitched his wagon to a toxic figure known for wanting to throw granny off the cliff. The selection will fill in blanks on Romeny's platform. Too bad they're the wrong answers. This will invite fresh scrutiny of just how awful the Ryan budget is. Maybe when it's all said and done, voters will see Ryan for the economic Milli Vanilli he is.
