Opinion: Ryan VP Pick Changes Electoral Math
W. Mitt Romney's vice presidential selection, Paul Ryan, has changed the Electoral College math.
Prior to the selection of Ryan, it was an open question if Romney could help himself with certain groups of voters. For example, Hispanics.
There was a lot of pressure for Romney to tap Marco Rubio, the Cuban-American Senator from Florida, because Romney is losing the Hispanic vote big time.
Instead Romney went another direction.
In doing so he has locked in the Obama lead with Hispanic voters. That makes it nearly impossible for Romney to win the battle ground states of Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico where Hispanics are a significant percentage of the vote.
When combined with Ryan's desire to replace Medicare with a couponing scheme, Florida is likely gone as well.
Paul Ryan and W. Mitt Romney had been on a bro-mantic tour of swing states. Over the weekend Team Romney tossed some cold water on the relationship and sent Ryan to Iowa and Romney to Florida on Monday.
A quick review of the Florida headlines explains why: The Miami Herald led with "Ryan Could Hurt Romney in Florida", the Palm Beach Post headline read "With Ryan in, Medicare key", and the Bradenton Herald said "Ryan could be a drag in Florida".
Paul Ryan's desire to end Medicare as we know it does not sit well with the retirees in Florida.
But there is another state with a large number of retirees who like their Medicare and a large number of Hispanics that no one is talking about right now: Arizona.
W. Mitt Romney cannot win the Presidency without Florida and Arizona. There is no legitimate path what so ever.
If Obama/Biden sweep the mountain west states, including Arizona, and win Florida, Romney-Ryan cannot make up ground in the Rust Belt.
With the selection of Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney can only be banking on a clean sweep of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, North Carolina, Virginia and New Hampshire.
That is not going to happen.
For whatever the reason, Romney has chosen a path that writes off almost all of the country and focuses the election on the industrial Midwest – a region that Romney made a fortune siphoning jobs from to line his pockets.
These are the states where the Bain attacks are the strongest and have driven Romney's negative ratings up.
The Ryan pick continues to be curious.
With every Republican from Mitt Romney to Senate and House candidates running away from the Ryan Budget it is odd to see its author campaigning across the country, injecting his budget into every race.
The GOP has twelve weeks to sort it out.
About Bill Buck
Bill Buck is a Democratic strategist, President of the Buck Communications Group, a media relations and new media strategies consulting business based in Washington, DC, and Managing Director of the online ad firm Influence DSP. He has over twenty years of international and national communications experience. The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of CBS Local.
