Slouching Towards Tampa (Ryan’s Hope edition)

[DemocratsForProgress]

Jeff Rosenzweig: Slouching Towards Tampa (Ryan’s Hope edition)

Mitt Romney’s “bold” decision to add Paul Ryan to the GOP ticket took his campaign’s previously one-dimensional tapioca flavor and added a distinct note of artificial vanilla extract.

The Romney campaign certainly needed some kind of boost. Following his calamitous Bland Tour of the United Kingdom, Israel and Poland, the increasingly ridiculous candidate came home to polling numbers that probably made him wish he’d stayed overseas. A Washington Post-ABC News poll put his favorable rating at 40%, unchanged since May, but found that his unfavorable, not great to begin with, had climbed from 45 to 49%. Worse still, only 41% of Republican respondents described their opinion of Romney as “strongly favorable” as against 61% of Democratic respondents who felt that way about the President.

Clearly, then, it was time to shore up support among the base, and maybe even create a little excitement. But how, and who? Christie? Portman? Jindal? Palin? Haley? Huckabee? Hutchison? Jointly and severally, no. Enter Paul Ryan, a Dick Grayson to Romney’s Bruce Wayne. Ryan was a surprising pick in a number of ways. For starters, he’s Catholic, making this the first Republican ticket in history not to include a Protestant (or two). Second, he’s part of the Congressional Republican power elite, and while Wisconsin election law allows him to run concurrently for his House seat, his loss in the national race this fall and what’s apt to be perpetual association of his name with Mitt Romney’s will only diminish his clout and tarnish his prestige among GOP true believers. Third, as he set about proving almost immediately after being named to the ticket, he might just end up being a bigger liability than Mitt Romney. Ryan’s tea baggage seems to get heavier by the day.

Ryan’s signature “accomplishment” to date is of course his proposed budget, rolled out to many an “ooh” and an “ah” back in March. Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” (PDF here) is equal parts boilerplate, bromides and bullshit; in essence, the same concoction with which Republicans have been gulling their faithful and hoodwinking susceptible independents since well before the Reagan Revolution. As was the case with earlier heralds of a new and mercifully fictitious Republican Golden Age (Gingrich, Delay, etc.), Paul Ryan has no use for modestly...

More at: http://www.democratsforprogress.com/2012/08/20/slouching-towards-tampa-ryans-hope-edition/