"...the main man is the least popular presidential nominee in nearly 30 years" [View all]

[babylonsister]

Paul Ryan sets out Romney stall but no one is buying

The running-mate had rousing words for the RNC but the main man is the least popular presidential nominee in nearly 30 years

Gary Younge
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 29 August 2012 23.57 EDT


For a party that has gone to extraordinary lengths to stress its links to small business, Republicans are terrible salespeople. They have had just one task this week: to market Mitt Romney. The trouble is no one's buying it.

At first sight the problem seems to be presentational. The contributions from the stage are wooden; the jokes flat; signs of oratorical flare rare. Time and again with just a handful of exceptions, a speaker came to the podium to great cheers only to dampen the enthusiasm with their actual speech.

Yet the sense you get from the floor is of a party barely going through the motions. Missing their cues to clap and boo, they respond as though they're watching vaudeville by satellite – it's as though they're not even there. Spend an hour on the convention floor in Tampa and you'd be forgiven for thinking the Tea party has switched to decaf.

But as time goes on it's clear that the issue is not presentation but the product. Last night the primary task fell to Romney's vice-presidential pick, Paul Ryan. The public is reserving judgment on Ryan. When Americans are asked what single word best describes Ryan, the four most frequent responses were conservative, intelligent, young and unknown; four years ago the same question with Sarah Palin prompted the word inexperienced.

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The trouble is Romney is proving just too tough a sell. A poll released on the day he was nominated revealed that Romney is the least popular nominee of a major party in almost 30 years. So tough in fact that even when the Republicans do buy it they won't wear it. A poll last month showed a significant enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans in three swing states – Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania – found supporters who "strongly favoured" Romney trailing Obama supporters who "strongly favoured" the president by double digits.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/30/paul-ryan-romney-stall-buying