What selecting Paul Ryan means for Romney

When Mitt Romney announced he selected Paul Ryan as his VP running mate it spoke volumes about the state of his campaign and the Republican party.

Paul Ryan, GOP congressman from Wisconsin, is considered the ideological leader of the Tea Party elected congress.

He authored the Ryan Budget which places emphasis on more tax cuts for the wealthy, less government regulation for corporate America, radical reform of entitlement programs like medicare -- in fact most Democrats believe he wants to totally dismantle the American social safety net.

Paul Ryan's budget -- passed by the GOPTP House of Representatives -- is so radical that ultra-conservative Newt Gingrich called it "right-wing Social Engineering."

This is the guy Mitt Romney selected? Why?

• Romney is still not embraced by the party base: the enthusiasm for Mitt among his own party is not exactly his cup runneth over. So, even though Mitt exclaimed he was severely conservative -- a description that even had Rush Limbaugh scratching his head --  he was forced to appeal to his base instead of independents in the middle.

• The Tea Party won the battle against the GOP establishment. In other words, the Tea Party -- a fake grassroots movement financed by the billionaire Koch brothers -- has won the heart and souls of the Republican party.

• Mitt was tanking in the polls: Romney initially wanted the election to be about him being the anti-Obama guy. He wanted to stand side-by-side with Obama and ask the American people who did they like better. After being defined by team Obama -- the rich guy who pays little or no taxes -- and after multiple gaffes -- just think his disastrous international tour -- Romney realized his strategy was not working.

As Howard Kurts stated in the Daily Beast:

Mitt Romney is playing to his right by naming Paul Ryan as his running mate, instantly transforming the election into a debate over the Wisconsin congressman’s divisive budget-slashing plan

 

In a single stroke, Romney energizes the right wing of his party by picking the man who many Republicans revere as the intellectual leader of the party’s drive to shrink government. But he also hands President Obama and the Democrats a titanic target with a paper trail, given Ryan’s budget-slashing plan, approved by the House, that would turn Medicare into a voucher program.  source