Is it Ryan?
If so, here’s a preview of the Romney-Ryan fall campaign — or as Drudge writes tonight linking to the above video, “Paul Ryan took apart Obama and Obamacare — in 6 minutes!” (We already know what Mr. Obama thinks of the selection if it is indeed Rep. Ryan; note the steam coming out of Mr. Obama’s ears and the stutter out of his mouth at the end of the video.)
We’ll know soon enough Saturday morning at 8:45 AM eastern on…the USS Wisconsin.
Update (12:01 AM): Drudge, NBC, ABC and AP are all saying it’s Ryan, so this has to be The Mother of All Head Fakes if it isn’t. In the meantime though, Steve Hayward of Power Line quotes his post on Ryan from last year:
I suspect Ryan is one of the few Republicans Obama genuinely fears; after all, Ryan schooled Obama in Obama’s faux-”health care summit” early last year. (Obama does not look pleased in the video.) David Brooks reports, by the way, that Obama never picks up the phone to try to talk with Ryan. Ryan is not simply fearless about the issues, he also gets the larger picture, and can talk about the larger picture in a way that Kemp often fell short. Ask Kemp about any other question than taxes, and you’d often hear a rambling answer that tied inner city education problems to the gold standard. That’s why his presidential prospects withered. Ryan, on the other hand, has immense facility to talk about the broader principles of the republic; he’s not just a number-crunching bean counter.
“The Choice Makes It a Choice,” Jonah Goldberg adds. “Ryan reinforces the message, grounded in objective fact, that the Republicans have a plan for the future while the Democrats are simply about kicking the can,” Jonah writes. “The vice presidential debate will be awesome. If I had to predict right now, Ryan won’t so much trounce Biden as Biden will trounce himself. All of the talk about how Ryan is smarter and more knowledgeable than Biden will get deep in Joe’s head. Biden’s insecurities will spill out on the stage like overturned chum bucket.”
And finally, some unsolicited but rather useful and time-tested advice to the not-yet-official ticket.
Update (12:00 PM PDT): It is indeed Ryan; more on Romney’s decision, and Ryan’s ability to deftly pushback against the MSM’s narratives in the follow-up post here.
Who cares?
Who the *bleep* is excited about anything that Mittens has to say?
I dislike the current President with a passion that burns like the sun but I frankly will not vote for the tool-that-speaks Romney. I won’t vote for President Obama, either, but the Republican party had already gotten that for free.
That’s fine.
I’ll make sure they come for you, first, then, since you think your principles are so important.
R Cranium,
You are a fool. Withhold your vote from Romney/Ryan and chock another one up for Obama/Biden.
Fool.
It is up to Team Romney now to help Ryan define himself before Team Obama does it for them, which means they need to have their game plan down this weekend, especially going into the Sunday morning talk shows. That means focusing on Ryan’s budget plans and making sure that the presidential nominee nor any of his spokespeople (hello, Ms. Saul) go out there and contradict Ryan’s message as House Budget Chairman via some quote that makes it sound as though Mitt also would be happy to add or keep a few big government goodies in 2013.
Since the Democrats have only two default positions for any conservative Republican — stupid or evil — they’re not going to go the ‘stupid’ rout as they did four years ago with Palin. Let the Dems and the big media control your message — or even add to that message with a dumb statement — and Paul Ryan will be portrayed as eviler than Dick Cheney by the middle of next week (I would say Ryan would make Cheney look like a Boy Scout to the Democrats, but today’s Dems think the Boys Scouts are pretty evil themselves).
I just can’t see the logic of this pick. Portman would have helped Mitt carry Ohio. Rubio would have helped with Florida. Even with Ryan on the ticket, Mitt is unlikely to carry Wisconsin, which is not a must-win state anyway. Meanwhile Ryan’s budget plan, while admirably specific and bold, makes this an election about entitlement reform rather than about Obama’s lousy record.
An energized base is what Romney needs. If Romney can’t win Ohio without Portman, I doubt he would win it with Portman. Wisconsin is not a must win for Republicans…but it is for Democrats.
Portman with his ties to Bush would have been more problematic for Mitt than attacks on Ryan’s budget. Instapundit and Iowa Hawk are right: Romney and Ryan need to say the thing that will destroy Medicare is Medicare. A fix is absolutely required because it is dying (and it will die far faster when Obamacare kicks in and guts it).
“Wisconsin is not a must win for Republicans…but it is for Democrats.”
I doubt Obama needs to carry WI if he wins FL and OH.
Creative Minority makes an excellent point: “Mitt Romney keeps the social conservatives on board and perhaps even enthuses them a bit by selecting about as solid a social conservative as he could possibly have picked and that naturally turns the media discussion to the ECONOMY!
He selected a 100% pro-life pro-family veep and all anyone can talk about is the economy. That, my friends, is called WINNING!”
There’s the added bonus that choosing Ryan will completely twitterpate the thin-skinned Ryan-hating grudge-holding Obama, and when Obama gets angry and flustered, he makes mistakes and overreaches.
Romney just got inside Obama’s OODA loop. Again.
“… naturally turns the media discussion to the ECONOMY!”
No, it turns the discussion away from the present state of the economy and toward Ryan’s plans for entitlement reform – which are likely to be unpopular, since they involve cutbacks and other sacrifices. Ryan is the “Take your medicine even if it tastes bad” candidate. That may be a bold stand, but it’s a losing electoral position.
That video is telling. Ryan clearly knows his stuff, and he’s engaged, articulate, and actually trying to make a persuasive case instead of demagoguing his opponents as Evil Incarnate. Obama looks sour, aloof, contemptuous … and not-so-subtly gives Ryan his middle finger.