Paul Ryan

Romney announced his VP pick this past week, Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan.  I can’t say I’m at all surprised. Ryan does a lot of things to help Romney shore up the conservative base. Among many conservatives he’s well respected and they tend to still like his budget plan. So for Romney, who no one really likes, getting someone his conservative base can support will only help him there.

But will it help him in the general election? I don’t think so. Paul Ryan is a very polarizing figure.  Independents, democrats, seniors all hate his budget plan. Since, you know, it will kill social security and medicare. He does nothing to help sell Romney as anything more than a man looking out solely for the wealthy.

The only positive thing I can say about Paul Ryan is that he recently tried to distance himself from Ayn Rand whom he previously was all gushy over. Though, take that distance with a grain of salt. And I guess he’s not crazy like Bachman or Gingrich. He just genuinely believes that government shouldn’t be helping people. That might be worse actually…

So, in the end, this announcement doesn’t change much. If Romney wins, it’s still cut taxes for the rich, eliminate anything useful for the rest of us. Now they just have added someone with actual conviction to screw over the rest of us, instead of just doing so because it’s politically expedient.