Personally, I’m feeling a lot of Portmentum, but a blogger can hope:
Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan has a far higher profile in social media than the other Republicans mentioned as possible running mates for Mitt Romney, according to a social media study powered for BuzzFeed by Attention, a media agency that focuses on quantifying the impact of topics and individuals on the social space.
Is there any way the right can so fired up about Ryan that they force Romney to pick him? Not bloody likely, I’m sure.
gbear
I blame Obama.
Skippy-san
It is probably because I keep writing, “There is a special place in hell reserved for an evil man like Paul Ryan“-in as many ways as possible on Facebook.
David Koch
It won’t be Ryan, cuz he’s a career politician. After all, Romney continues to wank away about you have to have business experience to be president.
But here’s some Great News for McCain!:
PPP did a poll of Arizona and found a statistical tie btwn Black Metrosexual Abe Lincoln (46) and Mittens (49)
Among Indepedents, Obama leads by a stunning 51-39. What an embarrassment.
The only reason Mittens even has a tiny numerical lead is because the GOP has a 12 point voter advantage.
PANIC!
Hunter Gathers
A Romney/Portman ticket will have all the excitement of a mayonnaise sandwich.
BGinCHI
How many politicians on their way up have ever agreed to be a VP candidate?
Serious question.
dmsilev
Tim Pawlenty has the advantage that he won’t outshadow Romney.
dmsilev
@BGinCHI:
Sarah Palin?
John Edwards and Dan Quayle might also be possibilities from recent history. At least they *thought* they were on their way up.
Valdivia
Portman was promoting himself by saying he is very boring. I think that’s a win no?
dr. bloor
@Hunter Gathers: Hey, with a little cress, they’re quite refreshing, you know.
Comrade Dread
No way Ryan is a veep candidate.
The Obama campaign is dying to get attention on the “granny starving” (h/t Charlie Pierce) GOP budgetary plans. And the last thing Romney or Ryan want is to be forced to start talking about whose granny they’ll be starving so Romney can get another tax cut.
David Koch
What Buzzfeed doesn’t get is most of that attention is negative.
Please, Ayn Ryan didn’t even run for the Senate this year because he knew he couldn’t win his home state.
The Dangerman
I could see Ryan to prep him for 2016, but he would doom the ticket in 2012. His budget proposals will not sell.
I pondered a couple threads down about Lugar to help with Mitt’s lack of foreign policy cred; the Dude has some time on his hands these days.
dr. bloor
@Valdivia: I suppose that’s about as close as he can come to saying “even less lifelike than the top of the ticket” without seeming too obvious.
Steve
There was a time when it was considered critical to have some sort of foreign policy experience on the ticket. Heck, I think that time was basically every election through 2008. Mitt Romney’s foreign policy platform apparently consists of “I have no idea what I’ll do, but you can be sure I won’t be apologizing for anything!”
David Koch
@The Dangerman: Lugar is 80 years old. 80 year olds do not get veep spots.
The Bearded Blogger
@Steve: Romney/Bolton 2012!!! (as in, Mayan calendar 2012)
Valdivia
@dr. bloor:
flattering with damning praise is probably the way to go for these guys.
The Dangerman
@David Koch:
He ran as an 80 year old a month or 2 back? OK, that’s a problem, but potential imminent death didn’t hurt Cheney at all.
The Bearded Blogger
@David Koch: plus, he agreed with Obama once on something
JPL
Bob McDonnell or Condi Rice were not mentioned but I still think they are possibilities. Condi was pro choice but she could come out as anti-abortion and the party would forgive her. Mitt is very concerned about Russia and who better to select as part of your team as an expert on Russia. Go Condi.
David Koch
@The Dangerman: potential imminent death didn’t hurt Cheney, but it sure hurt McCain.
Southern Beale
Who will rid me of these meddlesome Palin family members and their fucking reality TV show appearances?
Shoot me now, America.
David Koch
@JPL: you do realize Rice’s sexual orientation would be a difficult selling point with the christofascists.
The Bearded Blogger
@JPL: The base would NEVER go for Condi… they supported Herman Cain because they knew he would flame out, they would never support a black person who might win (nevermind a single, possibly lesbian, black lady with a pro-choice record who would remind voters of Bush)
beltane
@JPL: I could see Bob McDonnell because he has impeccable fundie creds but I’m not sure who Condi would appeal to other than the Beltway media.
BGinCHI
@dmsilev: That’s why I asked: it’s either has beens, wanna be’s, or eedjits. Or all three rolled into a shitty ball.
The Dangerman
@JPL:
Rice raises the prospect of talking about He Who Shall Not Be Named. Portman has the same problem. I think it will be as clean a break from that past Administration as possible. Bush’s name is beyond toxic.
DougJ
Condi being pro-choice rules her out.
Personally, I like Condi, I think she may be the reason we’re not in Iran right now.
GxB
@JPL:
But isn’t she a “Ladies Lady?” Nothing wrong with it on this side of the fence but we may have a precedent where INotOKIYAR. Also too, blah.
GxB
@David Koch:
FSM you people are all over this…
David Koch
@GxB: TWSS.
catclub
@BGinCHI: Lyndon Johnson
Richard Nixon, George Bush I, Hubert Humphrey,
Walter Mondale
All got better gigs than VP candidate.
The Dangerman
@Southern Beale:
I feel sorry for her; her career choices are now reality TV or the Wasilla Taco Bell (under an assumed name and disguise).
ETA: I should add that I’d rather have shivs shoved under my fingernails than watch that dreck, but feel sorry for her nonetheless.
catclub
Burr from NC. Complete non-entity. Completely overshadowed by Romney. Will never upstage Mitt.
White, male, senator.
David Koch
@DougJ: oh please. she went shoe shopping and to Broadway shows while New Orleans drowned.
jl
@Steve:
” There was a time when it was considered critical to have some sort of foreign policy experience on the ticket. ”
That was way back before ‘foreign policy experience’ in the GOP consisted knowing how to use the verb ‘bomb’.
BGinCHI
@catclub: I’ll give you 3 out of 5, barely.
negative 1
Said it in another thread but I’ll say it in this one…
It will be Ryan, because it’s Rmoney’s best chance to hammer the economy message 24-7. Ryan has negative ratings in many areas, but not in Rmoney’s base, and he desperately needs help in the republican base.
Ryan will say yes because he’s already hit the ceiling on his career otherwise. People have too strong an opinion of him for him to be a presidential candidiate on his own, and this may help him run for Senate some day even if Rmoney loses.
DougJ
@David Koch:
Nobody’s perfect. I’m glad we’re not in Iran.
TooManyJens
@DougJ: Then again, she helped us get into Iraq by repeating all that ‘mushroom cloud’ fearmongering bullshit.
Hunter Gathers
@DougJ:
There are a lot of dead Iraqis who would disagree you.
JPL
@catclub: How does that help win women’s votes. White males are not enough to carry the election for Romney.
BGinCHI
@DougJ: You can just admit you have a thing for Condi. I can see that.
reflectionephemeral
Everyone talking about Ryan on social media is already going to vote anyway. That’s meaningless support. romney wants to wink at destroying Medicare, not have it as his platform. Ryan has no chance.
Rice has less than no chance. America hates the Bush administration & Romney knows it, plus she sucks at everything except playing the piano and getting Bush to like her, plus she’s a pro-choice lesbian. Great choice otherwise, though.
Romney wants to wink at the right and be a cipher. Some and white male, a la Pawlenty, will be named.
JPL
The twenty-seven percent will vote for who the Koch brothers tell them to.
kindness
The right’s ‘intellectuals’ (or what passes for knowledge) want Ryan where he can garrote any possible Democratic goods with his ….well, what ever the fuck power Ryan has over the other troglodites.
Lev
Paul Ryan is dicey for Romney in the same exact way that Christie and Rubio are dicey. The GOP base loves all of them more than Romney. And the risk of that was proven in 2008, where John McCain’s campaign was completely upended by Palin’s shtick.
shortstop
@The Dangerman: Bullshit. She has the choice of quietly finishing college, getting a job that doesn’t involve having cameras on her and raising her child out of the direct sphere of her creepy parents’ influence.
Like said parents, she keeps choosing the path of least resistance: “abstinence” spokeswoman, dance competition contestant, navel-gazing blog, reality shows (2x).
She’s a grifter like her mother and father. I am so freaking sick of these people–and that includes Meghan good-at-nothing-but-self-absorption McCain.
shortstop
@BGinCHI: Seriously. We’re all adults here and have all noted a willingness to hit this or that in some thread or other. We don’t judge that shit.
ETA: Okay, we kinda do, but since I’ve always found a particular Republican politician to be inexplicably hot, I have sympathy.
shortstop
But back to the topic, I’m still going with Portman. He wasn’t an especially public face of the Bush admin. Most voters will not know he was Bush’s budget director, and except for those of us who would never have voted for Romney anyway, I doubt most of them will care at this point.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
Nice title! “I Still Miss Someone”. It’s the Linda Rondstadt version that I remember fondly.
middlewest
It’ll be that goddamn weasel pukestain Pawlenty. I say that mostly because it’s the one that would most depress me, and it’s been that kind of shitty year here in MN.
Jebediah
@David Koch:
Dick Cheney was 312.
Alex S.
It sort of has to be Portman. Romney is a little ahead in Florida and significantly behind in Virginia, so much that McDonnell alone won’t be enough to flip the state. So Romney probably has to nail down Ohio. Portman might deliver the necessary 2-3 percent. Then Romney’s got to hope that he can break through in some of the weak Kerry states (Oregon, Wisconsin). Romney must win Ohio and a Kerry state. So it’s Ryan, Walker or Portman, but Walker is on a mission in Wisconsin and Ryan, well… it depends. Have the Republicans become open enough about their top 1% agenda that they officially double down on medicare/social security cuts, i.e. the Ryan budget? I can’t imagine. Ryan is the republicans’ dream candidate, but simply not electable. Portman is boring, sort-of funny and no one cares about the budget anyway.
shortstop
@JPL: Why would you think a Republican woman wouldn’t vote for an old white man?
shortstop
Where’s kay to comment on Portman’s in-state popularity and other interesting Ohio info?
The Bearded Blogger
@Jebediah: Dick Cheney= Mum-rah. The ageless do not count their span in human years
JPL
@shortstop: The majority of females do not support Romney at this point. Romney wins white males but that’s it.
Citizen Alan
@dmsilev:
Sarah Palin was never moving “up” in the sense that the original commenter meant. Honestly, she’s not moving up or down so much as … orthagonal, I guess. Also too, I’ve always believed that McCain saved her career, because she was facing an ethics investigation when he picked her, and if he hadn’t made her the darling of the nascent Tea Party movement, she’d probably be out of politics today, if not dodging jail time for various criminal enterprises.
Steeplejack
__
There is so, so much wrong right there.
Ruckus
@Hunter Gathers:
With stale bread and mayonnaise gone brown.
Jebediah
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Couldn’t place it. I enjoy being teased by the title song references that aren’t quite on the tip of my tongue, though. (I’m not hearing Linda Ronstadt, though, and I can’t even place the (male) voice I am hearing sing it…)
gogol's wife
@DougJ:
Dolly Parton’s version of that song is really good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-KjHode1Ig
4tehlulz
That was quick:
Romney Camp Vetting Marco Rubio After All.
David Koch
@Jebediah: Actually Cheney was among the undead.
Jebediah
@Hunter Gathers:
On Wonder bread.
Litlebritdifrnt
@dr. bloor:
You can get cress over here? I have never been able to find it. *sigh* another thing I miss. Cress.
gogol's wife
@shortstop:
Agreed. I don’t feel one bit sorry for her.
BGinCHI
@shortstop: I always suspected you had a thing for Herbert Hoover.
Tramp.
General Stuck
It’s like a bottomless pit of 20 questions these morons are subjecting us to. And we are just getting started. Who’s on first? No, who’s on second.
MikeJ
@4tehlulz:
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/06/19/will_leak_force_rubio_vetting.html
gogol's wife
@Jebediah:
Johnny Cash wrote it, so maybe him?
BGinCHI
@middlewest: Yep, it’ll be Pawlenty.
Rmoney and T-paw.
Cue the smiting.
David Koch
MSNBC is reporting that Mubarak is brain dead. I guess that makes him the perfect running mate for Mittens.
gogol's wife
@BGinCHI:
Yes, I’d really like to know who she’s talking about. All the Republicans I can think of are repulsive. Except my husband.
4tehlulz
@David Koch: I blame Obama.
redshirt
If Rmoney can get Natalie Portman on the Repuke ticket, I’d cross the aisle to vote R. So hot, and smart!
jl
I know a girl who’s tough but sweet!
David Koch
@4tehlulz: If he only had used the Bully Pulpit.
Zifnab
@Hunter Gathers: Of all the people in the Bush Administration to lay the Iraq War at the feet of, Condi would definitely be at the bottom of the list. Cheney and Rumsfeld were going to have their war. They tossed a lot of decent people – Richard Clark and a few of the top ranked generals – to get that war. And Condi was no Colin Powell.
shortstop
@BGinCHI: The heart has reasons the head can never know, Beej.
GxB
@Jebediah:
For future reference, the proper Monty Python approved reference is “206” (7:25)
Probably the best post-Cleese episode, worth watching the whole thing.
Jebediah
@The Bearded Blogger:
@David Koch:
I had to look up Mum-ra. I think you are both right.
shortstop
@gogol’s wife: Never! You will never know. I have little enough dignity as it is.
Jebediah
@gogol’s wife:
No, it’s voice a little rougher and a little sweeter than Cash’s beautiful black-coffee sound. I heard it on Pandora, which I am listening to now. With any luck it will come back around.
GxB
@David Koch:
Condi bukkake (and no I ain’t googling it to see if I spelled it right) I won’t sleep for a week…
BGinCHI
@shortstop: Permission to treat the witness as hostile, your honor?
Jebediah
@GxB:
I’ll have to check that out when I get home!
shortstop
@BGinCHI: For three quarts of lentil soup, I might tell you. Might. Might.
redshirt
@GxB: Great band name. Or concept album name.
Nethead Jay
@GxB: Ouch. I really didn’t need that mental image.
BGinCHI
@shortstop: I knew you’d cave once the lentils came up.
shortstop
@BGinCHI: Sure. Because I am easy as a Sunday morning, just not in the way you meant.
Patricia Kayden
Seems like conservatives have rallied around Romney already, so not sure if his VP choice will make any difference. Unfortunately, he’s not going to pick anyone as exciting (wink wink) as Madame Palin. Dang!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Steve: Yes, amazing how Obama was unserious on foreign policy because he was only a senator in 2008 and Romney have gravitas because he can’t the difference between the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation.
WeeBey
Johnny Cash, FTW.
danimal
It’ll be T-Paw, but my heart would be a-flutter if Romney/Ryan were the ticket.
For the Condi commenters: I’ve heard the lesbian rumors for a decade, but I’ve never seen any kind of convincing evidence that she has any romantic interest in either men or women. Is there any kind of real evidence available? I don’t care myself, but so many assume that she is DQ’d as a Republican due to her sexual orientation. From all I know, it could be true or it could be a vicious, destructive rumor.
the Conster
I think the Veep choice will be Bolton. I’ve been saying it for months, because he’s gotta go full metal wingnut neoconservative, and Bolton will be his dutiful attack dog. Romney’s going to get all Likudnik and play for the Jewish vote, which may get him Florida. I worry about this. It would only be fitting that the election before the end of the world would be about the perennial problem posed by our “ally” in the Middle East.
TooManyJens
@the Conster:
…
Well, YOU can just rock me to sleep tonight!
jefft452
@BGinCHI: “How many politicians on their way up have ever agreed to be a VP candidate?”
TR for sure, they wanted him as VP to sidetrack him
FDR? would you say he was on the way up when he ran with Cox? he still had major state Govenor in his future, but he had just been pushed out as Sec of the Navy
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Jebediah: It starts out:
Round my door the leaves are fallin’
A cold, wild wind will come
Sweethearts walk by together
And I still miss someone.
You know I never got over those blue eyes
I see them everywhere
I miss the arms that held me
When all the love was there
.. or something like that. I think maybe Patsy Cline was the original singer?
Yutsano
@jefft452: Truman. Maybe. But as I recall he had rather little ambition.
Jebediah
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Could be – I still haven’t figured out who I heard singing it. Did John Prine ever record a version?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Southern Beale:
Bring on the Brawndo!
Jebediah
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
It appears that this Flatt and Scruggs version is not the one I was thinking of, although I do like it just fine.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@David Koch:
She was only doing what Dumbya told us to do, go shopping whenever a crisis hits.
It’s the economy that matters!
Frankensteinbeck
@danimal:
It doesn’t have to be true. It only has to be a stereotype satisfying rumor. The GOP base believe their guts, like all sitcom characters.
Mnemosyne
@JPL:
I hope you’re snarking (I think you are) because I distinctly remember how Condi completely fucked up our response to the Georgia/South Ossetia conflict even though she was a supposed expert in the region.
If you can’t figure out the right diplomatic response to a conflict in the region that you devoted your entire goddamned academic life to studying, you’re a fucking idiot. Full stop.
Mnemosyne
@middlewest:
If it’s any consolation, Biden would rip Pawlenty a new one in any debate. I can’t see Biden not getting a few good hits in about I-35, and no amount of “It was the pigeons’ fault!” will save Pawlenty from that wrath.
jefft452
@Yutsano: Nixon was a rising Republican star in the 50’s too
I would say that LBJ was at what most people thought was the hight of his career rather then being on his way up, but you could count him too