Better Romney Running Mate

Who would have been a better running mate for Mitt Romney in 2012 than Paul Ryan? Many conservative radio station talk show hosts such as Michael Savage bashed Paul Ryan IOTL.
 
Rubio is the only candidate who might actually flip a state. Portman might improve Romney's prospects in Ohio a little, but it is very doubtful he would be enough to overcome Obama's 2.98% margin in the state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Ohio,_2012

Of course neither Florida nor Ohio (nor both states combined) would be enough to change the results of the election, and I don't think either Rubio or Portman would change the narionwide result very much--as is indeed usually the case with vice-presidential candidates. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...minute/2000/06/nobody_votes_for_the_veep.html
 
Rubio,Cruz,Mitch Daniels

As someone else pointed out, Cruz had not yet been elected to the Senate. As for Daniels, his call for a "truce" on social issues--whether or not it was misunderstood, taken out of context, etc.--probably made it impossible to put him on the ticket.
 
Paul Ryan, having decided to grow his beard a few years earlier. It would go a long way to making him not look like a teenager in a suit.
 
Call me crazy, but Huckabee or Santorum. Romney was a moderate and a Mormon and that was a turn off to the evangelical right wing. A Tea Party evangelical could have given him an edge in bringing out the hardcore.
 
I'm not sure Romney needed much help turning out the hardcore conservatives; they both were and are solid and dependable Republican voters, especially when the alternative was Obama.

His biggest problems were that the fundamentals were good enough for Obama to win (note that, except for a blip around the RNC/first debate, the polls were actually reasonably consistent throughout)., and that he had the charisma of a wooden plank. The Democrats didn't need much work to make him look like the parody of an out-of-touch rich person. He needs to gamble, and he needs someone with charisma (and the ability to not look like a little kid while being schooled by Joe Biden).

Not sure who that would be; none of his rivals in 2012 could do much for that, and the 2016 crop of candidates were mostly too young/inexperienced (e.g. Rubio would have had 2 years in the Senate, and looks even younger than Ryan).
 
Not sure who that would be; none of his rivals in 2012 could do much for that, and the 2016 crop of candidates were mostly too young/inexperienced (e.g. Rubio would have had 2 years in the Senate, and looks even younger than Ryan).

Yeah, but Rubio doesn't look young in the same way as Ryan does. Ryan looks like a teenager with a gland condition. At least Rubio has some looks, so he looks young in a more mature way...oi.

Anyway, I think Rubio at this point would have been immensely valuable in a number of ways. One, Romney wouldn't share the ticket with another white person. Second, Florida. Third, Rubio still had credibility with much of the conservative base at the time. One of the reasons for Romney's loss was conservative abstention in some areas. That might be enough enthusiasm to at least put Romney at a higher total, possibly winning the popular vote.

As for experience, he had as much experience as Obama did when he was elected president. I'm not sure that would have been as much of a detracting factor.
 
As for experience, he had as much experience as Obama did when he was elected president.

2 years (in the Senate) =/=4 years. After claiming that Obama was insufficiently experienced, it would be slightly embarrassing to nominate someone with *less* experience and urge the voters to put him one heartbeat away from the presidency.

Anyway, I agree that Rubio would flip Florida but I see him having very little effect elsewhere. I doubt that a Mexican-American in Colorado is going to vote Republican because the party's vice-presidential candidate is a Cuban-American from Florida (while the party's presidential candidate talked about "self-deportation"). As for Rubio's appeal to conservatives, Ryan was popular among most conservatives in 2012, e.g., http://www.politico.com/story/2012/08/rush-limbaugh-ryan-is-us-079674 It was his later advocacy of immigration reform (and more recently his refusal to shut down the government) that diminished this. And Romney's turnout problem was not with conservatives so much as it was with downscale white voters who are hard to classify ideologically (conservative on immigration, liberal on many economic issues) and who would probably not feel any particular attraction to Rubio's economic views any more than they did to Ryan's (if indeed there is much of a difference).

Anyway, studies have indicated how little the choice of a vice-presidential candidate matters, *even with someone as controversial as Palin in 2008.* http://www.mwpweb.eu/1/76/resources/publication_522_1.pdf As for Rubio perhaps allowing Romney to carry the popular vote, given that Romney lost that by almost four points, this would require Rubio to have a greater positive effect *nationally* than most vice-presidential candidates have *in their own states.* http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytime...verrated-vice-presidential-home-state-effect/

I realize that the idea that the choice of a running mate doesn't make much difference in the election results seems counterintuitive given the attention paid to the veepstakes by journalists, but the evidence nevertheless is there: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-biden-heres-why-that-actually-doesnt-matter/ http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...minute/2000/06/nobody_votes_for_the_veep.html
 
Was Paul Ryan really that bad as a running mate?
His always voted his party's way.
I can understand getting rid of Sarah Palin for John McCain to win.

But if you feel like he needs to be changed, what about:
- Former*Senator Rick Santorum from*Pennsylvania
 
Who would have been a better running mate for Mitt Romney in 2012 than Paul Ryan? Many conservative radio station talk show hosts such as Michael Savage bashed Paul Ryan IOTL.

Nothing would change as you would still have Romney deliberately throwing the contest.
 
Romney had a running mate!?? I mean he must have but I don't remember ever hearing anything about him :winkytongue: Paul Ryan, the name is vaguely familiar... Any case from an outside perspective I was convinced that Obama was gonna win from the get go, but I might not have had as much to base that oppinon on as I thought at the time.
 
Nothing would change as you would still have Romney deliberately throwing the contest.

:rolleyes:

I think Rubio might flip Florida and maybe improve prospects elsewhere. I don't think he makes a significant dent in the different demographics, but I think the improved performance from the Republican ticket might help them in Congress. Bill Nelson might lose in Florida.
 
I'm not sure Romney needed much help turning out the hardcore conservatives; they both were and are solid and dependable Republican voters, especially when the alternative was Obama.

His biggest problems were that the fundamentals were good enough for Obama to win (note that, except for a blip around the RNC/first debate, the polls were actually reasonably consistent throughout)., and that he had the charisma of a wooden plank. The Democrats didn't need much work to make him look like the parody of an out-of-touch rich person. He needs to gamble, and he needs someone with charisma (and the ability to not look like a little kid while being schooled by Joe Biden).

Not sure who that would be; none of his rivals in 2012 could do much for that, and the 2016 crop of candidates were mostly too young/inexperienced (e.g. Rubio would have had 2 years in the Senate, and looks even younger than Ryan).
Mormonism is seen as a "cult" by evangelicals who are the hardest of the hardcore of the GOP base. A great many of them want nothing to do with any Mormon and several stayed at home. Even those who did vote for Romney were sub-enthusiastic about it. The secularist moderate Ryan did not help any. How does having a real evangelical TP running-mate not help at least somewhat?

I don't really think any candidate was going to overcome the "war on women" narrative that hung around the GOP's neck for all of 2012 (or, from October onward, the perception that a nutty Islamophobe's video was responsible for the murders of four Americans overseas), but Romney didn't do much to give himself a fighting chance by playing-it-safe.
 
:rolleyes:

I think Rubio might flip Florida and maybe improve prospects elsewhere. I don't think he makes a significant dent in the different demographics, but I think the improved performance from the Republican ticket might help them in Congress. Bill Nelson might lose in Florida.

Nelson won by *thirteen points.* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Florida,_2012 There is no way having Rubio on the ticket could save Connie Mack IV, a weak candidate--though it may be an exaggeration to say that the only reason he won the Republican primary is that voters confused him with his father...

Even for the presidential candidate with whom he is part of a "package deal" a vice-presidential candidate only modestly improves the vote in his home state--maybe by two to three points. http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytime...verrated-vice-presidential-home-state-effect/ He would presumably have even less effect down-ballot.
 
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