Mitt can't be a complete idiot. So ask yourself why he would pick someone seen as a "true conservative" for VP. Someone with little or no chance to attract moderates. Romney trails in the polls. All but a few have made up their minds and swear they would never change sides. And Romney picks someone who appeals to tea party idiots? What can he be thinking?
It's not difficult to figure out. Maybe it's so plain no one cares to talk about it. BruceMcF diary-ed it yesterday in Is the Ryan pic doubling down on Voter Suppression. It got a total of 40 comments. But voter suppression and what we can do about it is what we should be talking about.
Here's BruceMcF's bottom line:
But as far as a base-turnout strategy, supercharged with voter suppression of the competing establishment party's base ... yeah, then the Ryan pick makes sense.
1. Ryan will excite the base -- ensuring all of this minority will turn out nationally but especially in swing states.
2. Voter ID and other measures in swing states will suppress enough Democratic votes to give the evil empire the election.
This is what we need to be talking about. Not how ridiculous Ryan's budget is. Not how fake Romney is, or how cool Barack is. Not even speculating what's in Romney's tax returns.
The true story of the 2012 elections started with the 2010 elections when the Koch brothers put their money into taking over swing state legislatures. And ALEC started pushing vote suppression legislation. 40 vote suppression bills introduced. Legislators crowing their voter ID bill will give Romney their state. Ohio ending early voting on the Sunday before the election to suppress the votes from black congregations. So far, the ACLU's efforts in Pennsylvania have not been fruitful.
As I wrote in my LTE, when I was a kid, I was told the big difference between the US and the Soviet Union was that we had the two-party system and the Soviets only had one. It didn't matter who you voted for in the Soviet Union, your only choices were communists. This is what the Koch brothers are trying to do to America -- turn swing states permanently red to eliminate the two-party system. It's un American, undemocratic and downright evil.
Let's see more diaries and calls to action on voter suppression.