It was a big week in politics. And the biggest news, of course, was that Adam Gallagher won the Dane County Treasurer's job in an upset on Tuesday. This was a huge relief to Paul Ryan as it took the oxygen out of all the scrutiny of him and his record.
But let me be the first to say it: the selection of Paul Ryan as the GOP vice presidential candidate will prove to be the bigger story in the long run. You just wait and see.
So let's drop all the endless speculation about where the Gallagher administration is going to come out on the tax installments issue and focus back on Ryan. Can we please?
First of all, let's congratulate the GOP on the best veep candidate they've had in years. For one thing, he won't confuse the international flights streaking over his district on the way to O'Hare as a sufficient background in foreign affairs. Also, he's unlikely to remove himself to an undisclosed location to watch Dr. Strangelove over and over again trying to understand why it's considered satire.
Also, let's give the Romney-Ryan team credit for having the best combined hair of any ticket since Mondale-Ferraro (or maybe Kerry-Edwards). Sadly, Americans don't seem to select their presidents based on follicle count.
Ryan is given credit for having lots of ideas and this is absolutely true. Unfortunately, these ideas are from 1898, but they're still ideas! For example, his idea on Medicare is to have average seniors pay another $6,000 or so for the same coverage. I don't know. This could be significant in a state like maybe Florida, where there is a large population of older people, not that Florida has ever played a role in choosing the next president one way or the other. If I were Romney, I'd just color it blue and move on to more important states like Wyoming.
And here in Wisconsin, we now have a U.S. Senate race between Tammy and Tommy. With the only difference between these two candidates being a single letter, how's anyone going to choose?!
Actually, Thompson had a scare in the primary, but was able to hang on by claiming that all that legislation he passed over 14 years as governor working with a Democratic legislature was the product of constant prayer vigils and not bipartisan compromise. His problem now is to tone down his "I'm as crazy as the next guy!" primary campaign rhetoric for the less excitable general election voters.
Finally, in the world of sports, the London 2012 Summer Olympics finally ended with the Spice Girls looking terrified as they were driven around the stadium on rickety stands atop sports cars. Thousands of young athletes stared up in disbelief asking themselves, why would women the age of my mom do something stupid like that?
That's all I've got for now. Have a good weekend, kids.
