...AND CHOOSING PAUL RYAN AS A RUNNING MATE PROVES IT
Gotta know when to fold em' -- Perhaps only Paul Ryan can save Mitt -- from himself. Photo - Shannon Stapleton/REUTERS
Go
Figure. In
terms of strategic political net worth, the choice of House Budget Committee
Chairman Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate carries the same value as a
counterfeit fifty in Bloomingdales. But, as a calculated act of political
suicide, it's priceless. If this
decision was Mitt's alone, then his announcement of Ryan's selection could be interpreted
as a subconscious cry for help; as Romney's way of transmitting that he simply
doesn't want to live as President of the United States.
You'd think Mitt was in the
tank for Obama. After all, what better
way to throw in the towel or, at the very least, consciously booby-trap a
campaign three months shy of an electoral showdown than by picking the kind of
running mate sure to send an entire key voting bloc scampering over to the
other side?
Of course, his introduction of
Ryan as the next "president"
buttresses an entire range of likely Freudian interpretations. My own inner Freud senses a candidate backing
out of a losing campaign and greasing the skids for the guy in the corner over
there who called "next!" Through his
conscious choice of Ryan (who's basically a less pudgy, less pious Rick
Santorum) and his sub-conscious portrayal of his running mate as "the next
president," Mitt seems inching toward his campaign's big red TERMINATE PROGRAM button
or, at a minimum, transitioning his presidential run into lame-duck
status.
Actually, lame would precisely
describe the obnoxiously pretentious backdrop created for the occasion. Considering that neither served in the
military, the sight of the GOP's twin fiscal dynamos posing in front of a
battleship did little beyond offer a Dali -like
vision of optical incongruity -- sort of like Mike Dukakis in a tank. Perhaps an announcement before a giant
holograph of Houston's Enron
Tower may have produced a more realistic focus. But a freakin' battleship? That's hardly
the place for two chicken-hawks clucking around in deficit-hawks' clothing --
unless of course, the ship, like Romney, is an empty vessel.
But troubles with this
announcement don't end with an aesthetically inharmonic backdrop. Ryan's speech was a profoundly underwhelming
chat lacking the kind of resuscitative spark the Romney campaign sorely needs on
the heels of a wretched two-month stretch working the Etch-a-Sketch shtick both at home and abroad.
But it's not as if sparks aren't
flying between the two candidates. Mitt
seems quite smitten by Ryan and vice-versa. Even if Mitt is figuratively throwing in the
towel, it's nevertheless easy to assume that the two newly-minted BFFs truly
anticipate their initial bro-mantic excursions on the stump prior to enduring
parting's sweet sorrow when the time comes to for each to hit the campaign
trail solo.
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