By Daily Kos / Daily Kos Member
Paul Ryan was probably one of the worst picks for conservatives. Strangely enough, it’s because Ryan is a true conservative and now makes the ticket a truly conservative ticket.
Most conservatives, and people across the country, had their doubts about how conservative Romney really is. If you look at his health care law in Mass., some of the other laws he passed, and his past statements, he certainly comes across more as an opportunist rather than a conservative.
This past week, conservatives everywhere were putting pressure on Romney to pick not only a conservative VP, but specifically, Paul Ryan. Now the conservatives have exactly what they asked for.
If Romney had picked someone who the conservatives could deny was a true conservative, it opened up the door for enormous opportunities for conservatives in 2014 and 2016. When Romney loses, they could have blamed it on the ticket wasn’t a real conservative ticket. With most Republicans being totally irrational, the conservatives could have swept the primaries, and probably the elections of 2014 and 2016 based on the false claim that we have never had a true conservative government since Reagan.
That opportunity is now out the window with the Paul Ryan pick. In fact, the situation is now dramatically reversed. There can be no denying that this is the most conservative ticket ever to run for president, and it will be a campaign about the mostconservative budget ever proposed in the modern United States.
Instead of this being a referendum on Obama’s first term, with the pick of Ryan, this election is a referendum on the Ryan budget, and more broadly, the fundamental principles of conservatism itself! When Romney/Ryan lose this election, the Republican party will have to go back and reexamine where the hard turn to the right, since 1980 has taken them, especially if they don’t take over the Senate, again, because of the Tea Party candidates.
The Conservatives made a deal with the devil when they created the Tea Party, and now they’ve gotten exactly what they asked for in the Paul Ryan/Ayn Rand ultra conservative. This election is now the ultimate test of conservatism. Can these extremists win elections, and when it’s proven they can’t, what will the Republican party do?
As they say, be careful of what you ask for, you just might get it.