Heartening to see many coming over to my long held point of view regarding a VP choice - namely, it would be a mistake for Romney to go 'safe' and pick someone that just doubles down on what Romney already is [example, Portman] - rather, he needs someone who will compensate effectively for all the things he isn't - specifically, that means someone who can wade into a crowd or stand in front of the cameras and come across not only as skilled, knowledgeable, competent but also as appealing, likeable, engaging, someone who can sell or embody an invigorating message, a vision - and, just as importantly, given the no holds barred take no prisoners leave no lie untold nature of the Obama campaign, someone who can counterpunch with style. My first choice was Ayotte because as a woman she would without having to say a word be appealing in a way Romney cannot - but, although quite smart and competent sounding, her TV performances were lacking the 'it factor' as far as I was concerned and I therefore crossed her off my list - which left basically just Christie, Rubio and Ryan. I never thought Rubio a realistic option - and Christie, although I'd love to see him on the stump, great counterpuncher, just too big of a personality - you'd always be looking at him and Romney together and wondering who the real presidential candidate was.
Which leaves Ryan - he was always my favorite [well, he and Christie], I wanted him to seek the nomination - he's the only one left that satisfies my criteria and others are coming to this conclusion too - so many in fact that if Romney goes with a Portman the disappointment in the base could reverberate in a very bad way.
[Petraeus? Well... that would be a choice that would generate a lot of interest and excitement and energy at first - but I think as the campaign wore on would look less inspired - not because he lacks substance of course, but rather because, one, it's unlikely foreign policy will play much of a role in the election - in fact you really don't want it to be about foreign policy - and two, he has no political experience so it'd be a crap shoot as to how he'd perform on the stump. Would certainly make for an interesting few weeks though if he was the choice]
[all that being said, the recent royal screw up of the the liberal super PAC ad that essentially blames a woman's death from cancer on Romney and which the Obama team then lied about by claiming to know nothing of the story even though the story is basically theirs - this incident sheds light on the VP choice because you see how you can view it two ways - people - even the media!! - are finally starting to realize what a vicious, self-serving political animal Obama is - so given that, do you make a risky VP choice in order to effectively counter that ruthless kind of campaign? - or do you make a safe choice because you feel that Obama by running a mean spirited campaign like this and completely undoing his whole 'hope and change' message of four years ago is essentially digging his own political grave here? Hard to say - but I still think the safe choice is actually the riskier choice for three reasons: one, you simply cannot trust the press to play fair, they're too invested in the whole bullshit Obama new world order liberal fantasy camp; two, the economy could manifest some slight improvement and even just a slight improvement can be milked to great effect, especially if the media endorses the message, which they will; and three, you can't know what a person who will say and do anything to win will pull out of their hat to do exactly that - for instance, I believe I'm the only person to state that when Obama refused to release the Bin Laden photos he did so not to avoid offending Muslims but rather so he could release them at a more opportune time ie in the run up to the election - I still expect those photos to be leaked sometime in October - hell, they've leaked far more sensitive national security info for poltical purposes already - I'm not saying such a gimmick would move the needle that much, my point is this is the way Obama works and I don't think you can beat a ruthless manipulator like him by playing it safe]
