Veep Front-Runners in Verse
August 11, 2012 2 Comments
Cassandracarolina’s “Vetting The Veep: Your Complete Guide (In Limerick Form)” at DailyKos makes some nice points, but doesn’t deal with most of the Republican front-runners very specifically, so…
English: elephants (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Eeny Meeny Curly Larry Moe
For V. P., first there’s Portman, and Rob
Is the consummate man for the job,
If you want to be hiring
A guy as inspiring
As butterless corn on the cob.
There is serious talk of Pawlenty.
Would the voters find cause to lament he
Was the pick? In his state,
Those who’ve suffered the fate
Of lost jobs and lost homes could name plenty.
And we mustn’t forget about Jindal
Or the students his policies swindle.
He gets praise on the right
‘Cause he’s (rare there) not white.
When he opens his mouth, though, crowds dwindle.
(Marco Rubio’s missing. A shame.
And it’s me who is wholly to blame.
Though his lying CV
And corruption could be
Dandy punchlines, I can’t rhyme his name.)
And there’s word that the right is now tryin’
To sell Romney on someone like Ryan.
They so long for Christie–
Their dream–they get misty
And search for a beer glass to sigh in.
And here’s an earlier piece on another dark horse.
The very latest reports are that Romney is going to pick Paul Ryan. One of the worst moves President Obama has made was embracing the Tea Party emphasis on reducing the deficit during a Recession. Evidently the Romney campaign agrees, which makes me question my judgment, but while adopting that priority hurt Obama politically and the country economically, the Romney campaign picking Ryan reeks of desperation to me. It allows Obama to become more populist, which means he’ll be more popular.
I think the best chance Romney had was to appeal to the non-hard right and pick someone less wacko in the hopes that the base would come along anyway, but it looks like they’re desperate to shore up that base. Do they really think Ryan’s plan will stand up to scrutiny? I guess they’re counting on outlets like CNN to abdicate their journalistic responsibilities. Maybe they’re right, but I don’t think they can handle Ryan that much better than the McCain team handled Sarah Palin.
Ryan strikes me as more serious than most Republicans–including Romney. Instead of the vague lower taxes mantra, which sounds good to everyone (who doesn’t think deeply about it), he was willing to draw up a plan showing what lowering taxes would mean. I’d be glad to see that he weathered the attacks it opened him up to and it worked out for him. If others on both sides of the aisle would do the same, we could have a serious discussion about who should be paying how much in taxes and how we want to spend that money.
Picking Ryan does, though, feel like it’s about shoring up the base, aimed at avoiding humiliation rather than winning.