I think with Ryan he was trying a two-in-one appeal to blue collar Midwesterners and what he saw as a young generation of libertarians. Blue collar appeal is hopeless when you're Mitt Romney, and those voters were already becoming disillusioned with Obama anyway, so I would have ran as a more libertarian, 2013 RNC autopsy kind of candidate with Rubio for Tea Party appeal and to reinforce the image of a Hispanic-friendly campaign. Better to try a Conservative, Inc. route with plenty of distance from the Bush era neocons. The Trump model of supercharging WWC turnout and hoping minority turnout falls isn't sustainable, and frankly wouldn't have been possible for Romney. If everything went right:
Hard Disagree. First of all, Ryan was a poor choice to "appeal to blue collar midwesterners". Even then he wasn't terribly popular in his home turf. Libertarians are a tiny niche of weirdos (I would know, I voted for GayJay twice) and in that case Rand Paul was the obvious choice to make that appeal, not Ryan. Now that I mention it, Paul could have undercut the Obama admin. on things like NSA surveillance/foreign policy, since this is a few years before ISIS and the migrant crisis, as well as distance from the neocons. The "conservative, Inc." part of the party is deeply intertwined with the new-generation of neocons like Dan Crenshaw, Ben Shapiro and Dennis Prager.
The 2013 autopsy was a joke. You can give Romney all of the Hispanic support you want, but he wouldn't flip Ohio, nevermind the other midwestern states. That gives Obama a bare 270-268 win with OH/IA, even though Romney would dominate in the popular vote. People like Sean Trende rebuked the autopsy, correctly noting that the GOP's only viable path was championing trade/manufacturing issues. And his name is literally "Trende" so he must know what he's talking about
It's obvious that Romney needed FL and OH to have any hope of winning. Even a great VP pick would not have flipped any other state. The 2 options are the obvious one- Virginia + either CO or IA, or alternatively and underrated path is just Pennsylvania for a bare 273 EV.
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