A couple of quick reactions to liberal response to Ryan as VP. One, the claim he's an extremist. Compared to Obama, yes that's true - because you have to come a very long way back to the right to get away from how far left Obama and his ilk are. Compared to Clinton, or even better Kennedy, not so much. If you're a far left ideologue then indeed Ryan will seem extreme - but remember America remains a right leaning country - and remember as well, since the problems we face are extreme, weak kneed solutions will not suffice - my experience of Ryan is that he's very good at defending himself and very good at selling message that what liberals call extremism is just strong leadership engaging a crisis in a responsible way.
The other charge I'm hearing from liberals is one I actually agree with, ie that making the 'risky' choice is an admission of weakness by Romney. This is exactly why I all along urged making the 'risky' choice - Romney has obvious flaws - but let's understand that Romney's flaws have nothing to do with his qualifications for the job - anyone voting for Romney in a rational way is doing so based on his resume and how awful at the job Obama has been - problem is most people [who are not set in stone viz their opinons] vote based on some instinctive, superficial, gut level response to a candidate - Romney has trouble connecting on that level. So yea, Romney has flaws - but unlike Obama's myriad flaws, they're not of the nature that would negatively impact his performance as president - they may stop him from actually becoming president though. Ryan will help in several ways I believe to mitigate effect of these flaws - the man exudes decency, integrity, likeability [not to mention he's an expert outdoorsman and hunter, attributes much prized by important demographic] - and he should force the debate going forward to be about policy rather than tax returns and all the other crap Obama has tried to make the issue of late - whether Ryan can compensate enough for Romney's shortcomings, guess we'll see.
