Mitt Romney has the brains of W, the honesty and transparency of Nixon, and the campaign skills of Alf Landon. And now he's added the running mate of John McCain, like that'll help.
In Presidential elections with an incumbent on the ballot, America doesn't pay a whole lot of attention to the challenger. The winner can largely be predicted by comparing Presidential approval to congressional approval. I don't think I need to hunt the current numbers down to show you that hugely favors the President.
Romney's campaign has been sputtering for months. At this point, it might have been better for his chances if he, like Alf, had just stayed in Topeka for the whole general election season. How one manages to screw up a trip to London that badly is beyond me. Would a conservative columnist writing about how "Considerable mystery surrounds the disappearance of one Willard M. Romney of Massachusetts" really have been any worse than whatever the hell that trip was? Could anything have been worse?
So what's Romney do? He picks the most toxic member of our dysfunctional unpopular congress to run. The guy whose name is synonymous with austerity. Calling him Palin might be an insult to the half-term governor -- even Miss Alaskan Independence Party was less extreme.
Frankly, I'm looking forward to the VP Debate more than football season at this point. Paul Ryan in a debate is to Joe Biden what a hanging curveball was to roided up Barry Bonds.