“Saturday morning of the final Olympic weekend is unusual, to say the least,” said Republican John Weaver, a key consultant to John McCain’s 2000 and 2008 presidential efforts, as well as Jon Huntsman’s aborted bid this cycle.
“I just don’t know how the Ryan choice helps win Florida or any of the other swing states,” Weaver added. “I know it energizes the base, but the base so dislikes the president — for reasons rational and not — that Romney actually had a lot of room to make a choice more attractive to a broader group of Americans.”
Steve Schmidt, who ran McCain’s 2008 campaign, added: “I think the Romney campaign won the spring portion of the campaign, and Obama won the summer portion of the campaign.” But he went on to say that in light of a rough trip abroad, toughening poll numbers and attacks regarding the GOP nominee’s tax returns and his past running Bain Capital, the campaign couldn’t withstand another two weeks of such pummeling. He figures that Romney strategists must have determined that they had to change the narrative immediately.
Still, Schmidt said, announcing Ryan as the running mate two whole weeks before the convention was a high-risk move.
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