What Paul Ryan Is For

Conor P. Williams

Conor Williams on Twitter. More background here.

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17 Responses

  1. James Hanley says:

    the most boyish sidekick since Batman adopted Robin.

    Poor Dan Quayle. He can’t even succeed at being remembered.Report

    • Mike Schilling in reply to James Hanley says:

      Considering what he’d be remembered for, that’s a triumph.Report

    • PM in reply to James Hanley says:

      Sir, I knew Dan Quayle. Dan Quayle was a very, very, very, very distant acquaintance of mine. And Paul Ryan is no Dan Quayle.

      Quayle may tie Ryan on boyishness, but he was always treated like a son–the dim scion of a wealthy family–not a sidekick.

      Ryan really does look like Romney 3.0, now with upgraded feelings.Report

  2. Tom Van Dyke says:

    I dunno, Conor. The veep is the candidate’s first executive decision. The selections of LBJ and GHWB magnanimously unified the party. Cheney and Biden brought age, experience and foreign policy gravity to younger men and made them look good for the solidity of their choices. Clinton’s selection of Gore separated him from the Northeastern Dem establishment, which lost with Dukakis and later with Kerry.

    McCain’s selection of Palin did nothing to assuage the suspicion that he was mercurial if not capricious. Jack Kemp, well, nothing was going to save Dole who iirc trailed in the polls wire to wire.

    Ryan gives the ticket a dynamic, whether or not he swings Wisconsin. His youth obviates the “boring white guy” accusation from [boring white guy] Brian Williams; Ryan is willing and able to refudiate the dead grandmothers and gutting Medicare slanders.

    This ticket is going to fight back. The buzz out there is that they felt they were dying the death of 1000 cuts with this tax returns, Bain gives you cancer, etc. chickenspit, and with the press faithfully carrying the narrative as “news,” the time had come to stop giving Obama value-added on its media buys.

    Anyway, I’m surprised with the choice. I’d admitted that Ryan has a bullseye on his back. But Romney was probably going to take the fire anyway, so he picked Ryan and gave him the gun to shoot back with. The Word of the Day in the rightosphere is “bold,” and it does indeed tell us something about Romney the man himself, his first executive decision.

    Aha. Just ran across this. It’s from NPR, so it must be true.

    http://www.npr.org/2012/08/02/157784723/5-vice-presidential-picks-who-were-key-to-victoryReport

  3. Murali says:

    Is it me or does Paul Ryan look like Anthony Clark?

    Report

  4. Peter says:

    At 6’2″ and 163 pounds Ryan evidently does not believe in eating.Report

  5. Pinky says:

    The Minerva article isn’t analysis; it’s advocacy. There’s a difference. There’s a place for both, but it’s never wise to confuse the two.Report

  6. M.A. says:

    It’s an Air Raid Siren.

    Paul Ryan gets to be the one blowing it so that Mitt doesn’t have to get his hands dirty.Report