In Norfolk, Va., with the decommissioned battleship USS Wisconsin as his backdrop, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney introduced America to the new president of the United States, Paul Ryan. It would seem that Ryan has some foreign policy positions, ones that may be less embarrassing than those of Romney (a foreign policy lightweight) who has both just finished an awful trip abroad but also succeeded in honking of the Japanese. Blunt force seems to be Ryan’s instrument of choice which is readily apparent in his budget. Ryan's budget also makes him a deeply polarizing figure: adorable to the base, repugnant to the left.
Romney's hope is likely that this will change the election season debate and take the heat off of his unreleased tax returns. It is also probably Romney's hope that he can shore up his campaign by picking a Midwesterner. With rare exception, the vice-presidency has never really amounted to much more than a chance at an election campaign photo op. Unless you were Ford, LBJ or Cheney, the post has rarely risen above John Nance Garner's famous observation that the vice presidency is "not worth a bucket of warm piss."
