Romney names Rep. Paul Ryan as his VP

It's official: Romney clearly feels that even after all his pandering and flip-flopping in hopes of winning over his party's base, he needed to go one step further. Yes, the Republican base remains ever-elusive to him.

As with the often-repeated malarkey about Ryan being a "brave" politician offering up "courageous" ideas (all nonsense, of course), this VP selection will likewise be characterized by the media as daring and bold. Poppycock. On the contrary, it's a forced move and one of desperation, because as I've been saying it's quite obvious that the Romney campaign continues to see polling data indicating the extreme core of the GOP, i.e. the base, is not yet a sure-thing come November.

Folks, we're fast-approaching September and the fact that there remains a good chance many die-hard GOP voters may choose to stay home on Election Day rather than vote is a very bad sign for Romney. Again, as I've written, at this point Romney should have been tacking to the center to appeal to the more moderate swing voters and the general electorate, but that hasn't happened, not even close.

The Obama camp should've been all smiles upon hearing this news, realizing it for the sign of weakness that it is. Over the years, the stronger Republican presidential candidates always selected a Veep who was perfectly suited for the side-car, with no perceived possibility of upstaging the top dog and who were almost by definition second-fiddles for the role at that point in time.

We certainly didn't see that occur with McCain, choosing no-nothing yet bigger-than-life "Going Rogue" Palin, and we've now seen Romney do the same thing, selecting a person who will presumably define and takeover his campaign. But given how things have been going in Romney land (read: not good), there's a good possibility Romney advisers figured it was time to blow everything up and take a chance on starting anew, a reboot of sorts (yes, the Etch-A-Sketch metaphor). Scrap the idea of a safe, mild-mannered VP like Portman and instead go with a fresh "game changer" like Ryan.

Again I repeat, it will likely be lost on most of the media that this choice reflects poorly on Romney's current chances of winning, that instead of being correctly presented as a last-ditch effort to win over votes he should've already had locked up, it will be portrayed as gutsy call. Groan.

Oh well, who knows. Maybe with Ryan on the ticket, Romney et al calculated they could gain X number of additional GOP core voters and then with some sly voter suppression efforts initiated in PA, OH and FLA, heck they might be able to pull out a slim victory. And unfortunately, they may be right.