Has Romney Given Up?

The choice by Mitt Romney of Paul Ryan as the Vice Presidential candidate seems very odd to me.  The VP candidate does not bring much to the table in most elections though tends to bring their home state into the fold.  

Paul Ryan should be able to bring Wisconsin into the Republican column, but that is only 10 electoral college votes, the problem is that he bring a lot more negatives to the table and may end the chances of the Republicans in winning many of the states they simply have to win.

The GOP now has a Mormon and a Catholic on the ticket.  In Canada this would not matter, but in the US it does.   Among the hardcore Evangelical Christians the Mormons are a dangerous misguided cult and the Catholics slavish papists.  Talk about alienating the base of the party.

I see a lot that Ryan has done in the house that would indicate he is much more interested in grandstanding and ideological crusades than actually doing the boring business of governing.   My biggest complaint with him is that he seems to be economically illiterate but acts as if he knows anything about tax policy.  

Running for VP will bring him onto the national stage and make a run for the presidency by him in the future possible    I am more worried about him than Sarah Palin because he might actually get somewhere.

US mismanagement of their government and economy has huge implications for the rest of the world.  If Romney were not pandering to the crazies in the GOP I would have faith that who ever won the 2012 election would not screw the economy.   As it stands, the choice of Paul Ryan says to me that Mitt Romney is giving up on everything that made him the best GOP choice for president to try and pander.

2012 feels like a redux of 2008 for the Republicans.  McCain was a respected and intelligent senator that then abandoned all that to pander to the extreme and chose a crazy woman to be VP.   Romney was a good governor and did much to improve the US economy with Bain Capital, but he seems to be following the McCain 2008 strategy.

In 2008 I was more for McCain than Obama mainly because Barak Obama was very short of any experience to be president but as the election went along I was less and less comfortable with McCain/Palin and finally wanted Obama to win.

In 2012 I went into the election being pro-Obama because has been a good president, certainly better than either of the Bushes and in most ways better than Clinton.   He has impressed me.  I have never warmed to Romney and I doubt that will change now.

Finally, was Paul Ryan Romney's first choice or had he already gone some way down the list till someone finally said Yes?