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While I may question the political wisdom of Mitt Romney choosing Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate, making the selection public relatively early is a smart move. One of the most valuable assets any political campaign has is the candidate’s time, which is inherently limited. Picking a running mate early is as close a campaign can get to doubling this limited resource.
While sending the VP pick to events is an imperfect substitute for the actual Presidential nominee, it is by far the next best thing. No other possible surrogate has anywhere near the heft, media value or public draw.
A quick look at Ryan’s official schedule from the campaign shows that Ryan is scheduled to go to at least ten fundraisers in the two weeks before the Republican National Convention. Ryan has proven to be a prolific fundraiser, and this should help Romney again win the fundraising race for another month. In addition, Ryan is likely to do numerous other events, small stops and interviews. This is all money that would not have been raised and events that would not have been attended if Romney had waited until the convention to name his running mate.
The small benefit of making your convention more suspenseful by waiting to announce your running mate there simply can’t compare to many benefits of allowing your campaign to cover more ground and raise more money for two weeks. It’s a sad statement about our politics that fundraising is so critical to the campaign. But since it is, having an official running mate as early as possible who can start calling donors and going to fundraisers is probably an easy way to bring in more cash.
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I hope the premature chicken-counting about Ryan is over. Given that Americans know little about the issues; given their weariness with a status quo that Mr. Obama has not shaken; given Ryan’s relatively acceptably telegenic white boy looks (not MY thing!); given the number of rich people SIMOLEONS these creeps rely on to stack the deck against us; given how little Obama can be relied on to fight these creeps with the TRUTH, let alone justice OR what at least some of us think should be the American way; given the media love of a horse race and beholdenness to the corporate power that gave us these creeps to begin with (did I mention that they are creeps?) all premature chicken counting should really cease at once!
Those are all good reasons to select early. In the past they waited until the convention because the race didn’t start to heat up until then anyway. Of course, as we all know the campaign starts immediately now so better to pick early for all the reasons you outlined above.
In Romneys case it was in the hope that Ryan would shore up the wabbly base and more importantly to change the conversation. I think he will has success with the former but not so much for the latter.
Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay taught him all about selling out to special interests.
Yep they’re already doing it. “No, Obama is the Medicare cutter, we’re trying to save it!” Repeat that enough for the low information masses and you have a real horse race. In a more sane world this dbag would be pelted with rotten eggs at every campaign stop.
Fund raising is how you get leadership positions and committee chairs. Look no further than Robert Menendez, to name a Democrat, or Pelosi, another top money raiser, or, quietly, Kirsten Gillibrand. Ryan’s committee position is more about money raising than anything else. Every one of the leadership positions and the important committee chairs is openly for sale. The prices to contend are posted. http://www.nextnewdeal.net/sites/default/files/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/bwpaper_ferguson_040811.pdf
Interesting take. I’m “deja vu all over again”. Palin was picked to “energize the base” and appeal to women. But, everyone acknowledges now, thast was a desperate move froma desperate guy and a desperate campaign.
Is this a similar move??? Will it succeeed? Will Ryan push the independent voters away from Romney with his “trickle-up” political economics?
Guess we’ll have to wait for the movie. I see Dermot Mulroney playing Ryan.
Might as well learn from the best!
(I live in DeLay old district)
I long for the good ol’ days.
They don’t call it RE-volution for nothing! It’s a reestablishment of the basic rights of human beings.
“…“No, Obama is the Medicare cutter….”
I am not going to hold my breath waiting for Obama or any Democrat to say: “I won’t cut SS, Medicare or Medicaid”.