The announcement of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate late last Friday sent a shockwave through the political and media world. The snap judgment of what passes for conventional wisdom among the chattering class is that the Ryan pick was bold (as opposed to safe), and that the election will henceforth be all about wonky details from the Ryan budget plan. "A campaign of Big Ideas!" the pundits excitedly gasped. "Just what we've always wanted!"

Well, we'll see, won't we? I tend to think that -- even given the opportunity -- most of the media will quickly get tired of actual budgetary issues and return to what they do best: shallow speculation about the horse-race aspect of the contest, focusing on meaningless trifles and shiny distractions because they are so much more fun to "report" on than digging through budgets and doing actual math. Perhaps I'm being too cynical, though. Maybe they'll surprise me.

Cynicism aside, Ryan's choice is going to make for an interesting election dynamic. Mitt Romney really has three choices now: run on the Ryan budget, come up with his own just-as-detailed budget, or try to have things both ways by running away from Ryan's budget while refusing to say what he would do differently as president. Right now it appears Romney really would like to take that third route, but my guess is that the first option is going to be forced upon him by default. Ryan's budget is now going to be (Democrats are already leaning hard on this phrase) "the Romney/Ryan budget."

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From time to time, here in these pages, we take the opportunity to pre-empt our usual talking points and instead offer up a rant. These rants are usually pretty feisty, and are fun for the whole family (so to speak). This week, we don't precisely know what to call what we've done in the talking points segment, since we don't know what the opposite of a "rant" is (maybe "snooze-fest"?). It may be boring, mostly because the subject matter is how boring the election season has so far been. If that doesn't sound like fun (for any member of the family), then I wouldn't blame you if you decided to take a nap rather than read it.

With that "fair warning" out of the way, there are two highly amusing talking points coming from the Republican camp this week. If your irony-detector is as acute as mine, you'll appreciate the GOP completely and utterly destroying two of their bedrock positions just to score a few cheap political points. I don't know about you, but I find this sort of thing to be one of the more enjoyable forms of political entertainment around.

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[Program Note: Today we present the second of our guest columns, and heartily encourage more people to send these in so we can run them. Today's column was actually submitted a week ago, so the gap in relevance is entirely the fault of this website, and not the author. Americans are for the most part unaware of how the rest of the world sees them, and both the Olympics and Mitt Romney's visit overseas opened up a window into some of this worldwide opinion. Our guest author today ("An Arrogant Brit") not only sheds some light on this, but also makes several excellent points about what America could learn from the rest of the world, as well. Enjoy, and if you've been thinking about submitting one of these columns... whatever are you waiting for? Type it out and send it in today!]

-- Chris Weigant

Lessons For Mr. Romney From The U.K. And Europe

Day One of Mitt Romney's foreign trip did not go particularly well. He learned first-hand that no country likes an arrogant American coming in to tell them how bad a job they're doing, regardless of how special the "special relationship" is.

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It's time once again to check in with the horse race, and examine the math in the Electoral College, since it is (after all) the way we actually elect our presidents.

Since the last time we took such a snapshot, roughly three weeks ago, both candidates have shown some firming up of their positions, but the good news for both candidates is mixed with some softening as well.

First, let's take a look at the overall chart, which shows no nuance but rather how the election would go today if every single state poll out there was 100% correct (which would indeed be newsworthy, in and of itself). This graph charts percentage of the Electoral College for both candidates (blue for Obama, red for Romney):

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I had some fun while endlessly waiting for the commercials to end during the Olympics recently, so I jotted down some questions to see how much Americans know about their own country. Think you know U.S. geography? Then you'll like the rest of this column. Hate geography and hate quizzes? Well, check back tomorrow for more of the usual sort of fare here.

There are no sneaky questions here (at least I think there aren't) -- this is basic U.S. geography and history. For contrast, here's an example of a sneaky geography question (this one, unlike our quiz, is not limited to the U.S., I should point out):

You are a brave explorer, and you wake up one morning to discover that you seem to be lost. You head out to reconnoiter from your campsite, walking one mile due south. You don't see anything, so you then walk one mile due west. Still seeing nothing, you turn and walk one mile due north. You are astonished at the end of this, because you find yourself right back at your campsite. While you are scratching your head and trying to figure this seeming impossibility out, a bear wanders by in the distance. What color is the bear?

That's not original, so some of you may already know the answer to it. I'll provide it, after our little quiz. There are a whole bunch of questions here, so I would strongly advise anyone attempting the quiz to number and write down your answers, as it'll be impossible to keep track otherwise. The answers will be provided via a link at the end of the column, so you don't have to worry about "spoilers" as you scroll down.

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This is the story of two political movements. As with any such movement, both eventually got to the point where they asked themselves the fundamental question of what they were attempting to achieve, and (more importantly) what methods they were going to use to accomplish their goals. This fork in the road can be summed up as: do we work within the existing system, or is the system itself so broken we should work outside the system in order to reform the workings of the system itself. One group chose one path, the other chose to head the other direction.

I'm speaking, of course, of the Tea Partiers and the Occupiers. Both groups started with a simple motivation: to "take the country back" from those who had hijacked it. Of course, both groups defined that statement in radically different ways, but the motivation was similar enough. Both groups started in disarray, without clearly defined goals (or, as the media demanded, "demands"), and with a healthy amount of suspicion for "the system" they were attempting to change.

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What with the attacks on Mitt Romney coming from Harry Reid this week, we thought we'd get into the spirit of London-tabloid-headline-ism: "No sacks of Romney tax facts?" "Harry: Mitt lax on tax!" "Reid backs max attacks on Romney tax lacks!" "Romney shellacks Reid tax attacks? Reid: No pax! Take an Ex-Lax!"

OK, maybe I had better just stop. Don't want to be lumped in with those particular hacks (ahem... OK, really, I'll stop now). For those of you wondering, we have officially entered Silly Season 2012. In fact, we've been getting rather silly all week long. Call it our own Silly Season 2012 torch relay, complete with a discussion of the weasel family. Which brings up a thought -- London missed out on the perfect opportunity to include a segment of the Olympic torch relay showing people doing Monty Pythonish "silly walks." Now there would have been compelling Olympic television! Ah, well, what "might have been...."

Getting back to Silly Season 2012 here in America, though -- this is, of course, the official time of year when all the politicians in Washington take (according to them) a well-deserved break from doing the job they're paid to do, to enjoy a luxurious five-week vacation. Because, as we all know, the nation's business has been so fully accomplished that there's really nothing more for Congress to do in August, so they might as well take the month off, right?

If only. The list of things left unaccomplished is actually monstrously big, starting off with the House's refusal to pass the farm bill which made it through the Senate. Because we all know the farmers are doing great this year, and won't mind waiting another month and a half (at minimum) for House Republicans to act. It's not like there's a drought happening or anything.

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Obama drops back

I have to begin today with two reminders. To regular readers of this column, you'll note that it is appearing on Thursdays and Tuesdays from now until the election, in a more abbreviated form. If Obama loses, then it'll probably continue on Tuesdays and Thursdays until next January, for completeness' sake. If Obama wins, this column will return to its prominent spot on the first possible Monday or Wednesday after the end of each month, and I'll likely have to come up with some better graphics after January.

For everyone, a reminder that what we examine in this column is Barack Obama's job approval rating as president. This is only tangentially related to the 2012 election. Mitt Romney is not mentioned in this poll at all, it's a simple "Do you approve of the way the president is doing his job?" question. For the election itself, we have begun our Electoral Math column series, and we should be getting another one of these out some time next week, if all goes well.

OK, with caveats firmly in place, let's take a look at how Obama did in July:

[Click on graph to see larger-scale version.]

July, 2012

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In today's modern and interconnected world, many avid sports fans enjoy the thrill of pretending to manage their own teams in virtual leagues dedicated to "fantasy football" or "fantasy baseball" and other fantastical and fun venues for outguessing the professionals. Every four years, in the parallel world of politics, the pundits, prognosticators, and various other species of wonk join in their own imaginary gamesmanship, in what is known as the "fantasy veepstakes." Indeed, it is obligatory to write at least one breathless column on the vice presidential selection per election cycle, or they will kick you out of the "Pundits, Prognosticators, And Various Other Species Of Wonk Club."

In order to keep my own membership in good standing, today I am going to take a look at Mitt Romney's possibilities for a running mate to flesh out his ticket. Well, actually, "flesh" is the wrong word to use, because rather than engage in the fantasizing over actual veep choices, instead I am going to look at running mate possibilities from the world of fantasy. These "veepstakes" columns are boring enough, as a class, so we'd thought it be more fun to imagine characters for Romney's ticket, rather than writing endless paragraphs about the likes of Tim Pawlenty and his relative strengths over Rob Portman's budget experience... (ZZZZZ)... oh, sorry, I seem to have put myself to sleep, there. Anyway, you see what I mean. The real choices aren't that exciting to write about, so let's travel to the Land of Make-Believe instead, shall we?

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We have today the first of our guest columnists who will be appearing in this space through the end of August. Today's column comes from ChrisWeigant.com member FedWayGuy, who describes his personal politics as: "I started life as a libertarian Republican, and as the political landscape has continued to move to the right, I now find myself a progressive Democrat. Go figure!"

If you'd like to write a response to this article, or have an idea for a different subject, use the Email Chris page to contact me or send in your submissions. I'm pretty open-minded as to subject matter, so write your column out and send it in! You might be the next to see your article appear here.

-- Chris Weigant

Let's Talk About Guns

Another madman, another massacre, this time in Aurora, Colorado. When will it end? The Supreme Court has guaranteed an individual's right to bear arms -- how does that end? Do we wind up with private armies, owned by rich individuals and corporations? Is that where it ends?

I think it's time to talk about guns.

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