That would probably help Romney in Ohio, which is pretty much a must-win state for him. Whether it's enough to tip it, I dunno.

Whoever it is will be boring cause s/he can't have more charisma than Mitt.

The LA Times has been running a series of profiles on potential VP running mates. Interesting reading.

Much is made about VP picks, but I don't think the effect on election outcomes is all that significant. Might make a difference by shifting numbers slightly in very close contests, but I don't think there's much evidence for anything beyond that. Ohio is still commonly listed as a "tossup" state, but polling has fairly consistently shown Obama with a lead there.

Romney's probably going to need more than a favorite son VP candidate to make up for his position that the auto industry should've been left to deal with a bankruptcy process without government intervention. That might play well to Romney's base, but for those whose livelihoods were in the lurch, they actually do remember the fact that the private credit market was seized up at the time Romney recommended that the industry be allowed to go bankrupt. They also remember that without the Obama administration making government capital available to make the auto industry restructuring possible, the entire industry would have collapsed in 2009. Put plainly, Romney was on record with a plan that would have cost a lot of Ohioans their jobs. I don't think a VP pick will do much to help make up for that.

Much is made about VP picks, but I don't think the effect on election outcomes is all that significant.

JFK won because Johnson helped him carry the South.

McCain didn't lose entirely because of Palin but she sure didn't help.

So yes, people don't generally vote for the #2 spot, but it can be a factor.

"Put plainly, Romney was on record with a plan that would have cost a lot of Ohioans their jobs. I don't think a VP pick will do much to help make up for that."

Don't bet on it! Voters are stupid.

I couldn't disagree more with the statement "voters are stupid."

I think generally people are smart and mostly vote in good people. You can hate them for voting in favor or liberal or conservative, depending on your point of view. But they are anything but stupid.

And, really, do you want to go on record as saying you're smart and get it but most of the voting public are morons?

I'm a big believer in voters. Wish more people would vote, though.

I wouldn't say voters are stupid. But I would say that many of them aren't nearly as well informed as they should be.

For example, a woman (who let everyone in the room know who she was voting for) in the doctor's office waiting room last week told me that if we'd "stop giving $$$ to countries who hate us" we could fix all our budget problems.

When I tried (very nicely) to explain the size of the foreign aid budget relative to the total budget, she brushed me off with a "that's your opinion."

Told it wasn't opinion, it was fact and she could look it up, she still insisted in was just my opinion.

At which point I gave up on a conversation I shouldn't have even engaged in and went back to my New Yorker.

(And this is only a snippet of the conversation. The entire account would make you cry.)

I have worked with people who came in the day after the election and brag:"I WON all my votes". What are they doing betting on a horse race? Talk with some voters and question them concerning the candidates and their position on the issues, not just one issue they are mainly concerned with, but several issues. I will rest my case that voters are stupid. I have worked the polls on election day. You would be surprised at the number of people who will say, after a candidate has conducted a very high profile campaign, that they have never heard of him. People only believes what they want to believe. When they say that their grand pappy would turn over in their grave if they voted for a different party, then you know they are stupid. I have dealt with people for over fifty years in my profession, and I am a very firm believer that people are stupid.

These people continue to fare pretty well by banking on voter stupidity.

Had I not told my neighbor back in '08 that I would put him on my spam list and send them straight to the toilet, I'd have an inbox full of gigantic blue and red font forwards of this crap every day.

Now all I get are his forwards of kitten pictures. Lots of kitten pictures.

Yes, there are people who are stupid who vote. People of every possible political viewpoint.

And, yes, we could all come up with stories.

But they are the exception, not the rule. The majority of those who vote (an embarrassingly small number) vote intelligently.

Kind of the basis of our country. And a very good thing.

Matt Drudge has a weasely post saying that a source said that Obama said that Romney's trying to get Petraeus to sign on.

It's not voters who are stupid. It is politics. Voters are constrained by what is on the ballot, and most of what is on the ballot is stupid. That several hundred million people living in 50 states all choose from the same two parties is monstrously stupid, and it has created bland, lowest-common-denominator, patronizing politics.

Our broken political system favors one skill: ability to fundraise, which pretty much comes down to begging and bullshit. Our system places before us precisely the sort of people who know how to bloat budgets and hand out favors. We keep electing them because they are on the ballot, and they keep making us look stupid.

We pretend that our freedom and ideals always add up to greatness, but actual results vary. There are beautiful burgers being cooked all over this country in backyards and by small business owners who might amass a few million over a lifetime. If you really want to cash in, however, you need to sell shitty, frozen meat slabs on simulated bread.

Our Constitution and our voters want fresh, delicious government, but political parties have turned Nashville and Washington, D.C. into barely digestible gut bombs. Turn on Rush Limbaugh tomorrow afternoon to hear the excretions. Voters want a good meal, but the only thing on the menu is two flavors of stupid.

The major problem with politics and government is that the radicals from from spectrum have taken control of the party primaries. In order for a candidate to win he has to take a more extremist view than his opponents. What ever happen to the "big tent" of both parties? A candidate cannot discuss issues in detail with voters because the majority are not interested enough to listen. A candidate that mails a mailer with more than a few lines with the standard party talking points is wasting his money. It goes into the garbage.

Here is Nate Silver's take on the VP issue.

Submitted by Billy Cleuster / Lonnie (not verified) on Wed, 2012/08/08 - 9:37pm.

".... Over a dozen Republican state senators branded as too moderate for the extremists were defeated. How can any reasonable person take these uncompromising nut cases seriously? There has to be a serious backlash in store some time in the future for these nuts. Many moderate-conservatives Republicans are sick of this garbage. I sure hope it is sooner than later."

The moderate Republicans will not vote in the primaries. The far right nutcases will be there with 'bells' on to vote for the most extreme candidate on the ballot. Extremism has taken over both parties. The future looks bleak.

Submitted by Bill Cleuster / Lonnie (not verified) on Thu, 2012/08/09 - 12:42pm.

"I understand that many Republican insiders are saying Senator Thune of S.D. is the man and the announcement will come Monday."

How can he help the national ticket. South Dakota is more Republican than Tennessee and a small state to boot. Thune is unknown except to the far right nutcases. In my opinion, he needs someone from a swing state that could help win, the larger the state the better. Of course, he has to appease the nutcases since they think he is not radical enough.

Thune makes no sense to me. But neither do a lot of things the Romney campaign says and does.

Word is that Paul Ryan will be announced on the U.S.S. Wisconsin on Saturday as the VP pick.