The Romney campaign announced to supporters via a phone app that it has selected Paul Ryan as its vice presidential nominee for the 2012 presidential election.
The Obama campaign is surely excited about this; Ryan has gone the furthest among Republicans in proposing detailed plans for slashing social spending in this country, including privatizing Social Security and significantly overhauling Medicare.
The Ryan budget was deeply unpopular when it was proposed; why does the Romney campaign think it will be any less of a liability now? Don't they see how the Obama campaign has operated thus far (like Bush in 2004, and seemingly to similar effect); don't they see that Ryan's proposals are extremely easy wedges to cleave old voters away from the Republican base? His handling of the faux-scandal invented by Democrats over his finances wasn't bad enough; his repeated statements of an unbridled, unilateralist foreign policy akin to George W. Bush's -- the most unpopular president since Nixon -- plus retaining a variety of Bush foreign policy advisers, wasn't enough; no, more self hurt was needed.
Rather than make a safe bet with Portman for a moderate swing-state boost plus the option of quietly implementing a Ryan-esque budget once in office, Romney has ensured these unpopular proposals will be front and center, making them yet more liabilities derived from his own choices -- all in the midst of a historic opportunity.
R.I.P. Willard