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The New Ryanmania Still Doesn’t Make Sense

Jennifer Rubin has put together a VP short-list of three candidates for Romney, which mistakenly includes Paul Ryan. She writes: None of these candidates would be considered a Hail Mary or a hiccup in Romney’s message about competent leadership. In addition to being welcomed by Democrats as a political gift, selecting Ryan as a running […]

Jennifer Rubin has put together a VP short-list of three candidates for Romney, which mistakenly includes Paul Ryan. She writes:

None of these candidates would be considered a Hail Mary or a hiccup in Romney’s message about competent leadership.

In addition to being welcomed by Democrats as a political gift, selecting Ryan as a running mate would be perceived as a desperate gamble. It would be a sop to activists and pundits, and I suspect everyone else would greet the choice with puzzlement. The only way it wouldn’t undermine a message that emphasizes competent leadership is if Ryan were qualified to be next-in-line to the Presidency. No matter how much one might like him or how much one approves of his pretense to being a fiscal conservative, it’s simply not the case that Ryan would be ready to assume the Presidency if Romney were unable to fulfill the duties of the office. In the end, this is the one qualification for the VP slot that really matters, and Ryan doesn’t have it.

As I’ve mentioned before, Ryan would be unusually unprepared for a VP candidate on issues of national security and foreign policy, and this would be much more noticeable because of the nominee’s lack of experience and his habit of making embarrassing, overreaching statements on the subject. If Ryan’s foreign policy speech from last summer is any indication of what we could expect from him as a VP candidate, he would make Romney’s foreign policy weaknesses more glaring. Instead of serving as a check on Romney’s worst demagogic instincts, Ryan would likely encourage them.

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