Paul Ryan’s air war

Mitt Romeny clearly  has taken a chance by selecting Paul Ryan as his running mate.  Ryan is smart, slick and comes from a second tier battle ground state of Wisconsin.  But the real reason that Ryan is important is that where Romney has been evasive abut details to his specific policies, Ryan has been precise and shockingly bold.

But i dont want to slash Ryan’s dangerous policies, that has been well done by others. What i want to talk about instead is why Romney made this choice and the implications.

he seems like such a nice guy

Romney is in a very difficult place, he is down in Ohio, Florida and down by double digits in Pennsylvania.  Many commentators say Romney must win all three of these states to take the presidency, because he is behind nationally.  And each of these states has nearly twice as many electoral votes as Wisconsin and had acceptable mainstream VP candidates.

So why Ryan?  Well, if you are losing on the ground and another boring white guy establishment VP choice is not going to change the game, then choose someone who can get you what you really need to change the campaign around.  Would that be votes? Don’t be naive.  It is money.

Ryan is promising billions to oil companies, tax cuts for the rich paid for by the poor and middle class, $228 billion military build up.  Who wants these programs?  Very rich people do (and duped middle class voters, of which there are many).

Romney has selected Ryan because he thinks he is worth perhaps a billion dollars in the last 3 months of the campaign.  Romney will need all that money to blanket the broadcast media and the internet with far more attack ads than Obama can afford.  Everyone hates them, and they work, they really work.

“You can’t outsource likability,” Emanuel says. “You can’t have an offshore account for it in the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands.”

Can an unpopular, disliked, flip flopping candidate really buy their way into the presidency?  We are about to find out.

The other thing which i think is dooming the Romney/Ryan ticket is their attitude towards the media.  I watched one of the Romney debates where the CNN reporter asked him about his position on contraception.  And unsurprisingly Romney dodged the question entirely.  The CNN guy asked about it again in follow up, siting Romney’s lack of answer and Romney got excited and replied.

“You ask the questions you want, and i will give the answers i want.”  For red meat Republicans this is great theater.  Push back that liberal mainstream media, Mitt!

For the independent voters who are trying to decide between these two candidates, it looks a lot more like an unwillingness to answer questions which the voters would like to have answers about.  Without these independents, Mitt and Paul are going back to their day jobs.

As Romney wrapped up the trip with a stop in Poland, his campaign spokesman told reporters shouting questions at Romney to “kiss my ass.” The aide, Rick Gorka, told another reporter to “shove it.”

This kind of class act with the press is not without blowback.  The MSM ate Sarah Palin.  Dont bite the hand that feeds prime time.