“The larger strategic point,” according to the Wall Street Journal's endorsement of Ryan for veep, “is that Mr. Romney’s best chance for victory is to make this a big election over big issues." And Ryan, says Ezra Klein, "is Mr. Big Issues."
But Klein sees it differently.
... The smaller, more Machiavellian point is that Ryan is Romney’s best chance to diffuse the blame if he loses this election. If Romney chooses the proverbial “incredibly boring white guy” and then goes down in November, conservatives will place the blame squarely on Romney’s shoulders: He was a flip-flopping, Massachusetts Moderate with a cautious campaign and a car elevator. The narrative, in fact, is already set. In July, the Wall Street Journal editorial page accused Romney of “slowly squandering an historic opportunity.” They would simply have to change “squandering” to “squandered.” And Romney knows it.
But if Romney chooses Ryan — if he makes this the “big election over big issues” that the Wall Street Journal editorial page wants — then his loss will be their loss as well. He’ll still be blamed, of course. But the fact will remain that he took conservative counsel, adopted conservative ideas, named a conservative hero as his vice president, ran on the Ryan budget, and lost to a liberal. The right will not be able to pretend they weren’t on the ticket. They will have chosen the ticket. ...WaPo
Ezra Klein may also be Machiavillian. Should Ryan happen to read Klein's analysis, who could blame him for saying "get me outta here!"
But if Romney wins and Ryan is his vice president?
His life as president is likely to be a lot easier with Ryan inside his administration than outside of it. ...WaPo
Better: both of them wearing cement boots and going down together. Glug, glug.
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And here's one of many good reasons to dump both of them overboard. Forget about Romney's depredations and look at what Ryan's budget would do: send taxpayer money from Washington into corporate pockets after bleeding the states dry.
That makes all of us the fall guys.
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