If Sarah Palin represents the most irresponsible decision John McCain and the Republican Party had ever made, the selection of Paul Ryan seems like a no-brainer smart choice for Mitt Romney.
The press is deferential to Ryan because he comports himself as a very serious budget wonk (we all know he’s an Ayn Rand crackpot who’s all too willing to genuflect to Glenn Beck et al); he’s another “central casting” Republican presidential stereotype who will ultimately run circles around Romney on the campaign trail unlike, say, Chris Christie who probably wouldn’t have survived the rigors of a national campaign; and he hails from a swing state.
Credit where credit is due, Romney could’ve picked a fire-eater like Santorum, Gingrich or Christie and he went with someone who is absolutely the opposite of Sarah Palin. Paul Ryan is wrong on everything, but he’s not a moron.
All that said, Ryan’s influence on a would-be Romney White House would be utterly disastrous for the economy and the instantaneous austerity measures, along with the dismantling of the Obama agenda, would spell doom for millions of working and middle class Americans. On the other side of a four-to-eight year Romney term will be a privatized Medicare, massive deficits from radical tax cuts for the rich, and an economic depression without any real ability for the government to inject emergency cash into the economy.
But if Romney really wants to win this thing, he made the right choice. For him and the Republicans. The rest of us will be screwed a thousand different ways.
