What If Romney Doesn't Pick Ryan For VP After All?

Some say Romney wants someone less controversial and less tarred by the GOP effort to end Medicare and prosecute the vicious class war they've been waging against working families-- some nebbish like Rob Portman or Mitch Daniels-- both architects of the catastrophic Bush economic agenda, Portman having been, as U.S. Trade Rep the enabler for the worst job outsourcing in history and then as Director of OMB increasing the U.S. debt by $469 billion in just one year. Daniels was another of Bush's incompetent OMB directors (previous to Portman) and during his disastrous 2 year tenure the projected federal budget surplus of $236 billion declined to a $400 billion deficit, entirely due to the Bush Economic Team's purposeful failure to enact spending cuts to offset gigantic tax reductions for the one-percent. Either one sounds just as "good" as Ryan. And if Rob Zerban defeats Ryan in November, in the unlikely scenario that Romney becomes president, what better job for Ryan than... OMB Director or even Treasury Secretary-- something where he could do the most damage to ordinary working families in the glorious tradition of Bushism. This week Charles Pierce, author of the brilliant Idiot America, took a look at Ryan's political careerism. Ryan, he points out, lives with his family in the old Parker Mansion (as in parker Pens, which outsourced their manufacturing from Janesville to Europe). "[Z]ombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan," writes Pierce, is the "budget wonk in the Georgian mansion." Pierce interviewed Blue America-endorsed anti-Ryan, Rob Zerban.

"To me... he's a grossly out-of-touch Washington insider. From that aspect, to get re-elected, I would say that, for a long time, he talked a moderate game in the district and then become very partisan with his votes in Washington. He was able to hide it for a while, but now he's authored a budget that shows clearly what he stands for.

"The people of the First District can see where that budget impacts their lives. Their bridges start to crumble. We've got 16 bridges on federal highways alone in the district that have been declared structurally deficient and that doesn't include county and local municipal bridges. He's been neglecting his district and raising his national profile. We've had massive job losses in the district. A GM plant closed in Janesville. A brassworks plant closed in Kenosha. He's been supporting trade policies that allowed jobs to go overseas, and these are not policies you pursue if you're from this district."

..."He has a lot to answer for," Zerban tells me. "He has to defend the indefensible. I don't know where he gets his credibility on budget matters. I mean, he had a minor in economics. What experience does he have to say that he's the great budget oracle? None that I can see. As nearly as I can tell, he graduated and he went right to work in Washington, for a couple of senators and then to a think-tank and then he ran for Congress. He's the kind of 'budget guy' who doesn't have any real world experience. I had to write responsible budgets when I was running a small business.

"Those [Social Security] survivor benefits [that Ryan used to go to college], a lot of people I know wouldn't have been able to put that money aside for college. They needed it to survive. I know without Pell Grants and Stafford loans, I wouldn't have been able to graduate from college."

...The only time that some fudge appears in Zerban's confident spiel is when he discusses the support he's had so far from the DCCC, which has been criticized in many quarters for lining up behind more corporate-friendly Democrats and leaving people like Zerban, who is fighting an uphill battles against a legitimate congressional television superstar, twisting in the breeze. "It continues to develop," Zerban hedges. "Everything's a stage. We've hit certain levels and I'm certainly not unhappy, but there's always more that can be done."

We were tickled pink that Pierce linked to the Blue America billboard we're erecting in a very special location in Wisconsin's first district. We can still use some help getting that up, by the way. You can hit the thermometer above to help with that or just go here to our I.E. page and give what you can. This is the only Blue America page where there is no limit on what you can give. So if a drunk Koch brother is reading this and feeling randy... go for it, dude. Show us how big your bankbook is.