So, paul ryan is romneys vp.  Seems like a pretty big risk for romney.  It may be smart because it may help take the discussion back to budget proposals and away from character, but I dont know if the Ryan budget is really something Romney wants center stage.

What do you guys think?  Good pick for romney?  Personally, i was hoping for christie, but whatever.

Seems like a pretty safe choice to me ...

He seems ok for the job.

However, he feels like an AWFUL choice for this election;

Wrongly ior rightly, the view of a lot of americans on paul ryan will feed into the Obama campaign's "Romney hated jobs" rhetoric.

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.

Romney's VP decision can not possibly be as bad as John Mc Cain selecting fire brand Sarah Palin in 2008. Romney a moderate, has selected a conservative Republican in Paul Ryan to appeal to the right faction of the Republican Party.

Indeed. Ryan is there to get staunch conservatives to turn out on election day. Last thing Republicans want is to attract a decent number of independants /  moderates only to see conservatives stay home in droves and thus lose the election. Ronmey will try to get the moderates to vote for him while Ryan needs to reassure the conservatives that it's OK to vote this time around; that Romney IS substantially and attractively different to Obama.

The Ayn-Rand-reading man who was once accused of "right-wing-social-engineering" by none other than Newt Gingrich?

Jackpot pick, Romney.

Just did a little bit of research on Ryan... not impressed at all. Having difficulty seeing why everyone here thinks he's conservative...

He voted for Medicare part D (prescription drug expansion), all the bailouts, TARP ...the list goes on and on. He is the exact opposite of what I was looking for in a Romney VP pick. Just very distressing.

So far, Romney introduced him as the next President. Then he attacked Obama for destroying Medicare right as he introduces Paul Ryan as his running mate - - you know, the guy who wants to get rid of Medicare. The Mormon president picks a guy who has been more influenced by an athiest than any other person in his life, and he wants to appeal to Evangelicals - -there's plenty of evangelicals who quite simply see direct conflict between Ayn Rand and Christ and find them irreconcilable. Romney says private sector experience is the most important qualification for being president. Paul Ryan has ZERO private sector experience. It's just a very weird, unnatural fit in my opinion.

To me it smacks of desparation. And I'm kind of surprised Ryan agreed to it, in that he runs a risk of tarnishing the brand he's built irreparably. Failed VP candidates often disappear never to be heard from again, so it's as much a risk for him as it is for Romney. I just don't really understand it at all.

in terms of government policies he does have some black marks on his record in fiscally conservative eyes. He spent like 7 terms as a congressman.

To his defense though he did however push the Bush administration to propose privatizing social security, of which he did not get support for. And while I myself would have preferred another VP choice he at least is proposing to reduce spending and reform unsustainable programs. Unlike the Obama administration that seems to only tout "taxing the rich" will pay for them.