Gee, and he looked so harmless.
Mitt Romney's "bold" choice of Paul Ryan to be his running mate doesn't seem to be working out so well. Because all the "bold," teabaggy stuff Romney chose him for, or rather had his arm twisted into choosing him for, has been
abandoned out on the campaign trail.
A month after being named Mitt Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, the chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee whose controversial budget proposal rocketed him to national fame, is still not discussing his plan in detail on the campaign trail.
On the trail, the way the Wisconsin lawmaker speaks broadly about the need to cut spending and rein in the national debt stands in in stark contrast to how the congressman crunches numbers with ease in presentations on Capitol Hill, sometimes with the help of a graph or a chart. He is known as an unapologetic truth-teller, bearing fiscal bad news with political confidence that has helped elevate him into a conservative hero.
But on the national campaign trail where the risk is much greater, Ryan’s rhetoric has been fuzzier.
The dubious proposition as Ryan as "truth-teller" aside, he's not talking about the specifics of his budget because they are hugely unpopular, something that Romney didn't seem to take into account when he acquiesced to the Ryan backers. The Romney campaign apparently understands that, however, and now has to try to do damage control. Like not letting Ryan talk about his ideas. Or letting him
hang out with fellow Republicans in Washington when he's there for a vote.
What won’t Ryan be doing during his brief stop-over the nation’s Capitol? For starters, he won’t be meeting with the House Republican Conference, where’s spent more than a decade as a member of Congress. Neither will he be meeting with the Senate Republican Conference, nor individual meetings with Speaker John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell or any other elected leader of the Republican party.
[H]is apparent lack of interest in being seen with—or even seeing—his colleagues may reflect Romney campaign’s reluctance to be tied to congressional Republicans, whose detailed budget and stray remarks have both proven, at times, campaign liabilities.
For months, the campaign has been unhappy, and at times embarrassed, by the antics of Republicans in the House ranging from the kerfuffle over lawmakers skinny dipping in the Sea of Galilee to Rep. Todd Akin’s incendiary comments about “legitimate rape.”
Lovely. The GOP's standard-bearer is too embarrassed by his party's policy vision and its elected officials to be in any way associated with them. Here's the problem for Romney, though. Ryan
is one of them, one of the nihilistic, hostage-taking, granny starving posse of Republicans who've ground the Congress and the nation's economy to a halt because they hate that Barack Obama is president.
The fact that the Romney campaign, as incompetent as it has been, is not letting Ryan be Ryan on the campaign trail speaks to one thing: They realize just how far out of the mainstream of American politics the Romney-Ryan ticket is. They're just hoping to keep that fact hidden until November.