Comments on: I Was Wrong About Romney’s VP Pick

By: Nate Kimbleton

Nate Kimbleton — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 20:17:53 +0000

As more reports come out, we find out more about how this pick unfolded. Indeed Romney made this choice on August 1st. Romney however wanted to announce the pick that Friday in New Hampshire. As fate would have it, however, that was the day of the scheduled funeral for the Wisconsin temple shooting that happened in Ryan’s own district.
This pick makes three things clear. Number one, Romney wanted to announce this as early as possible. Number two, Romney believed he was in trouble. Number three, Romney insiders believed that they were not making a clear enough alternative to Obama. This is a gutsy choice by Romney, wrought with high risk verses high reward. This shapes the general election into almost what the UK had in 2010. A Labour party that advocates spending our way out of an economic downturn verses a Conservative party who advocates austerity. If the next three jobs reports are bad, Romney will win this argument. If they improve, Obama will. Simple as that.

By: Matthew Dickinson

Matthew Dickinson — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 17:30:59 +0000

Dale,

Despite the media focus on the CNN and Fox polls showing Obama lengthening his support. all the daily tracking polls – Gallup, Rasmussen – have consistently showed the race deadlocked. This is partly why the poll aggregators at RealClearPolitics, TPM and Pollster.com have the race much tighter, despite those individual polls giving Obama a bigger lead. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me if Romney was reacting to the media narrative about the polls, if not to the polls themselves.

By: Dale Steinacker

Dale Steinacker — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 17:24:58 +0000

Rasmussen was on Fox this morning disputing the idea that Romney is in trouble. The polls showing Obama ahead are eligible voter polls. Rasmussen said his likely voter poll has Romney up by 2.

By: Matthew Dickinson

Matthew Dickinson — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 13:16:30 +0000

Tom,

Anything is possible. If news reports are true, Romney decided on Ryan 10 days ago. That’s an eternity in Washington politics in terms of not leaking. So it’s possible this was announced prematurely. The ostensible justification for the Saturday roll-out is that it will lead the Sunday news shows and that Romney will capitalize on viewers turning on their televisions this morning to watch the Olympics and getting introduced to Ryan instead.

By: Tom Campanella

Tom Campanella — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 13:11:49 +0000

I am hearing that the timing of this announcement was caused by an accidental leak, and the Romney campaign was scrambling all last night/early this morning to clean the mess… do you think there could be any truth to this? I mean, what is the logic behind making the announcement on a Saturday morning? And how do you at least not wait until the end of the Olympics before doing this? Doesn’t make much sense to me…