Mitt Leaps Off A Cliff

And into waters inhabited by one very hungry shark from Wisconsin.  Well, I certainly can't resist writing about this.  After all, Green Eagle specializes in mean-spirited sarcasm, and that is (in my opinion) the only attitude that makes any sense here.

Of course, let me preface these remarks with my usual caveat:  The Republicans still have their billions in unregulated corporate money, and depending on how low they go when using them, we could still end up with this execrable fool as our President.

So Romney was bullied by a few days of right wing pressure into selecting Paul Ryan as his running mate.  Here is what he has accomplished in the most important move of his Presidential campaign:

First, he has demonstrated to the world that he is a man at once gutless, and lacking in any kind of principle other that a craven attempt to advance his own interests.  He has willingly capitulated to the pressure of a long out of control radical base, regardless of the fact that he must know that Paul Ryan makes it almost impossible for him to reach out to anyone who is not on the hard right.

Second, in the tradition of Republicans since Bush, he has selected a vice presidential candidate who is far more ruthless and committed to right wing ideology than he himself is.  Paul Ryan is a fanatic, who, like both Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin, has talked himself into believing that he is smarter and more knowledgeable than anyone else, and who believes he was put here to do what he wants, because only he has the keys to the truth. Like Palin (only more so) he will not hesitate to turn on Romney if Romney does not slavishly embrace the party line as interpreted by Paul Ryan. And like Cheney, he speaks for core Republicans in a way that Romney could never hope to. Ryan is the master of the base, and so Romney has essentially given away control both of his campaign, and his administration, should it ever come to that.

And I have not even begun to get to the policy baggage that Romney has just inherited.  He is now wedded to the destruction of Medicare, vast new tax cuts for the rich, and an exploding deficit.  If Democrats can cut through the Republican lie machine enough to get the American people to understand nothing more than that, Romney is dead.  Of course, one can never afford to underestimate Democratic messaging weakness, but the chance is sure there.

I am sure that no one thought anyone we would ever live to see could have made a more disastrous vice presidential choice that John McCain did.  Well, it may have only taken four years for that to occur.  It will be so interesting to see the Republicans flailing to present this to the American people as a great move.