Was Paul Ryan a good VP pick for Mitt Romney?

[IceSpear]

Honestly, I don't see what he brought to the ticket at all. From what I can tell, picking him had 3 objectives:

a) Mollify the conservative base over Romney's "RINO"ness
Verdict: Failed. Most conservatives had already accepted they were going to vote for Romney by late August anyway, and of the very few that didn't, Ryan didn't change their decision to not vote for "the UnChristian Mormon" anyway.

b) Help in the swing state Wisconsin
Verdict: Failed. Wisconsin voted pretty much exactly how you'd expect it to without a Wisconsinite on the ticket.

c) Crush Joe Biden in the debate with his "wonkishness"
Verdict: Failed. Speaks for itself. Biden easily could've been exploited and made to look like an idiot in that debate, but Ryan wasn't up to the task. He got taken to the woodshed instead.

[IceSpear]

Romney did show significant improvement in Wisconsin from McCain's 2008 results, so the pick likely helped there.

It wasn't significant when factoring in the nationwide swing.

[IceSpear]

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.