With a VP pick there will always be positives and negatives. I personally think we will find out Ryan will end up being more of a good choice rather than a bad choice. However, there are some big potential risks they will be pushed into tackling.
While I personally think it would have been great to choose someone like Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, or maybe even the New Mexico Governor Susanna Martinez I also do think that Ryan will add a bit of a spark to Romney support among many Republicans that do not like Romney much.
I will go through some potential bad possibilities here:
to explain some background of Paul Ryan, In the congressional elections of 2010 Paul Ryan was the congressman who led the fight on reforming many of the entitlement programs and making them sustainable fiscally, because if you look at the progression tables they will become unsustainable in the near future in terms of their weight on the federal budget.
Around the time of the congressional elections in 2010 the Democratic party had some attack ads one of witch showed a Paul Ryan look alike shoving an old woman off the edge of a cliff. This was in attack to his proposed reform of medicare. So we will see a pretty vicious onslaught of democratic ads saying that Ryan's plan will abandon seniors.
We will also likely also see the democratic side depicting Romney and Ryan as out of touch with americans, and just two "bloodless white guys wanting the middle class to suffer, and empower the rich at the expense of the poor." So this will only add fuel to the Obama campaign classwarfare niche.
Also one potential negative is that Paul Ryan can really get into the nitty gritty of budgets and it may fly over the head of more simple minded Americans that get lost in his political discourse.
So in the negatives it may really get people on the left energized in claiming these things.
On the positive side here is what it potentially brings:
Paul Ryan whether you think it or not is very much an intelligent individual when it comes to budgets, and policy. He also has a very good speaking gift in that he is able to articulate himself very well. This is something that Romney lacks. I don't think Romney can articulate himself very well. He talks about what he wants to do somewhat but he does not explain his ideas very well. its mostly clouded in platitudes.
I do think also that the left is underestimating Paul Ryan and that is a very dangerous position to be in. The left believes that they can paint Ryan as someone who has no care for seniors and basically only wants to destroy their government securities. Ryan I think will be somewhat of a surprise to some. whether you agree with him or not I have always thought he is one of the best articulators in the political arena. He is more of a straight talker and is able to explain a vision of the future of the country in fiscal terms.
Ryan will also be able to put a much needed spotlight on the federal deficits and debts. Ryan has been one of the major players in advocating for reforming entitlements and cutting government spending. He was one of the main figure heads during the congressional elections of 2010. In 2010 Democrats lost a lot of ground.
