I kind of hate to link to the dick whisperer and I’m not a big fan of who would you rather have a beer $350 bottle of wine with, but I have always wondered how well Ryan’s Beltway handjob routine translated into Real Murkin:
It was not exactly the kickoff Ryan and Romney wanted, but it did help to establish why Romney chose the young House Budget Committee chairman as his running mate: Ryan is almost as awkward as Romney.
Ryan has a deft touch in Washington when he speaks at think tanks or mixes it up with reporters. He has an easy manner and a confident command of policy. But he hasn’t been tested much as a retail politician. He doesn’t have to worry about close campaigns in his heavily Republican congressional district, and he hasn’t had to win over voters much beyond Racine and Kenosha.
His speech, stitched together with connectors such as “one more thing” and “another thing,” was not quite polished, and he began by waving a Green Bay Packers jersey before the Iowans, who are as likely to be Chicago Bears or Minnesota Vikings fans. After the first wave of hecklers and stage crashers was cleared, Ryan went through his five-point agenda for economic growth, mixing his beloved statistics (“Ninety-seven percent of the world’s consumers are out of this country”) with his trademark gloom (We’re “spending our children into a diminished future”) and a strained effort to portray himself as a local. “We need to grow and make things in states like Wisconsin, Iowa, the Midwest,” he said.
Every step of the way, Romney has catered to Joe Scarborough not Joe Soptic. Establishment media types like private equity ix nay on the axes tay because they work for big, shady companies and don’t want anyone digging into their own lucrative finances. They like Paul Ryan because he’s accessible, pretends to be an intellectual, and is actually happy if they don’t read his reports too carefully.
Lazy millionaire pundit and telegenic faux intellectual con man: it’s a perfect match.
But it probably won’t play in Peoria. Or at least there’s no evidence that it will.
El Cid
Newt Gingrich was an amazingly skilled political leader who was able to get elected for office in Cobb County, GA, this made him magically able to know everything about how to win any office anywhere.
Baud
They like just about every Republican. It’s really an amazing feat that Romney has managed to put himself in their dog house.
SatanicPanic
We got the opponent we wanted. FSM must love you man.
RinaX
Yet just as much of a wimp as Romney when confronted with any sort of challenge to his ideas. When people were floating that video of Ryan kicking people out of his townhalls earlier this year I thought, “Eh, too bad he’s probably too smart to do that again during the campaign”. So that is twice now within the span of three days that I have given Republican critters a lot more benefit of the doubt than they deserved.
Joel
Hey, alright! I’m fucking up my first public appearance!
Hill Dweller
I feel like a broken record, but Krugman’s two most recent posts perfectly sums up the careerists in the Village, the campaign, and Willard’s strategy to win them over.
JenJen
Exactly.
RaflW
You may not like Dana M, but this line is rather nice re: Paul Ryan’s awkward inability to connect to people who aren’t knob-polishing media toadies:
Until the heckling got good and started, anyway.
sad
They start the game with 40 percent of the vote.
You make it sound like they can’t win.
…sad