Was Paul Ryan a good VP pick for Mitt Romney?

[annecortez]

I still believe that he is a good pick despite many flaws. All people have that so we got to be open with such idea.

[Turbo Flame]

Ryan wasn't a bad choice, but Rob Portman or Kelly Ayotte would have been better options.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Ryan wasn't a bad choice, but Rob Portman or Kelly Ayotte would have been better options.

[LtNOWIS]

Here's the issue

Kelly Ayotte - Too inexperienced (had only been in the Senate for 1.5 years); too similar to Romney
Chris Christie - Too inexperienced (had only been Governor for 2.5 years); too brash; would upstage Romney
John Cornyn - Senate leadership; boring white guy
Mitch Daniels - Boring white guy; had job at Purdue lined up; probably would have declined for same reasons he didn't run for President
Bill Frist - Boring white guy; out of Senate for too long; doing other things and probably wouldn't have been interested
Mike Huckabee - Boring white guy; too socially conservative; too controversial; wrapped up in other pursuits
Bob McDonnell - Corrupt
Tim Pawlenty - Incredibly bland; no advantages that Ryan doesn't bring
Rob Portman - Endorsed SSM and would have done so even had Romney not picked him; boring white guy; bland
Marco Rubio - Too inexperienced (had only been in the Senate for 1.5 years); would not have performed well on national stage
 

...and Paul Ryan. The best choice? Certainly was never realistically going to deliver Wisconsin or beat Biden in the debate, would repel older voters due to Medicare and the Ryan budget, and had unfortunate ties to the House leadership, but was also young, handsome, solidly conservative without being a scary firebreather, wonkish, and reasonably accomplished

Romney really didn't have any good choices.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but nobody knew at the time McDonnell was corrupt. And nobody knew that Portman would endorse SSM either. So those two were easily better choices than Ryan.

The McDonnell corruption issues would've come to light with cursory digging, since they mostly were around McDonnell's daughter's wedding in 2011. I don't know if it would've been enough to seriously damage the ticket though.

[Chips]

No.

[beesley]

No, but people are acting like replacing Ryan would've drastically changed the race. He was a 'less bad' pick than Palin (as a candidate) or Lieberman (electoral ramifications).

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

No. Romney's biggest weakness IMO was his image as a rich guy in a suit who was born into wealth and didn't relate to the economic hardship that middle and working class Americans had felt during economic downturn. A free market fundamentalist like Paul Ryan was hardly going to challenge that perception.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

No, but people are acting like replacing Ryan would've drastically changed the race. He was a 'less bad' pick than Palin (as a candidate) or Lieberman (electoral ramifications).

VP picks rarely have a dramatic effect on a campaign anyway. Usually their purpose is to balance out the candidate's weak spots which I don't think Ryan did for Romney, but it's not like Paul Ryan sank Romney's campaign or anything like that.

[Schiff for Senate]

Ryan wasn't that bad of a pick, but Romney should've picked Rubio to win Latinos (who backed Obama in a landslide in 2012) and to help win FL. Or Portman, who I'm guessing would win over OH. Ryan wasn't a terrible pick but he was too little-known, young and inexperienced and brought very little to the table, electorally speaking, since I doubt even the Romney campaign really thought WI would flip because of Ryan. If I was Romney I'd pick either Rubio or Portman (probably Rubio).

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

He was pretty much the same as John Edwards...probably didn't hurt anything, but probably didn't help either.