Per the NYTimes:
1:17 a.m. | Updated Mitt Romney is scheduled to announce his vice presidential candidate on Saturday in Norfolk, Va., with several signs pointing toward Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin emerging as the leading candidate for the position.
Mr. Romney is set to disclose the selection as he tours the battleship U.S.S. Wisconsin at 8:45 a.m. on Saturday, the campaign announced Friday evening. The announcement ends a four-month search for a running mate on the opening day of a four-day bus tour through four critical battleground states.
A confidant of Mr. Ryan’s confirmed early Saturday that aides believed Mr. Romney had settled on the Wisconsin congressman to join the Republican ticket, but all advisers had been sworn to secrecy. Three senior Republican officials said that they, too, believed that Mr. Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, had emerged as the top choice….
… which means, if it turns out not to be Ryan, look for news of a ‘confidant’ being stuffed in a Wisconsin wood chipper.
While we are all waiting on tender hooks (/snark), the redoubtable TBogg has a link-stuffed, all-the-hits roundup on the career of “The Mergers & Acquisitions Man“, suitable for framing or fowarding to your low-information relations who wonder why everybody is trash-talking that guy on the USS Wisconsin podium:
I have had many conversations among friends and family as to exactly why Willard Mitt “Mitt” Romney wants to be President of these here United States….
[H]e doesn’t exactly have a long history of giving to his country; hiding out in a palace in France to avoid the Vietnam War draft (which he supported) and then lying about “longing” to serve. On this point, it seems that Mitt’s antipathy towards American military service (at least if your name is Romney) seems to have trickled down to his progeny…Stepping in and running the Salt Lake City Olympics doesn’t really count as public service since the Olympics are a private enterprise, albeit this one in particular was financed by the federal government in record-setting dollars while Mitt called dibs on the credit. The fact that he and his Salt Lake City brethren personally profited from the government largesse was probably just a lucky coincidence. Mitt Romney did have a cup of coffee as Governor of Massachusetts although his record there seems to have been wiped clean like so many hard-drives, leaving behind only his bastard child RomneyCare who, unfortunately for Mitt, keeps showing up at the most awkward times…
And the irreplaceable Charles P. Pierce explains that “Paul Ryan Is Not A Vice President; Paul Ryan Is A Fake“:
One day, some years from now, I’m going to figure out how Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver from Wisconsin, managed to fool so many people for so long. He’s a garden-variety supply-side faker…
Late Night Open Thread: “Romney/Ryan” PSAsPost + Comments (115)