Recriminations

Not that we needed some other indicator that President Obama leads right now but we've got another one this morning. One of the things you see when a campaign is losing is stories quoting anonymous sources about where it went wrong or what might have been or the dreaded, "what's the next step for politician X?"

And so it was this morning as Politico reported that Mitt Romney really wanted Chris Christie rather than Paul Ryan as his running mate. Who knows if the story is true but that doesn't really matter so much, does it? I can assure you, nobody in Romney HQ was plotting out the day saying, "We can really turn this thing around if we could just get a process story out there on how we sorta wanted someone else to be the VP but changed our minds at the last minute!"

Then there was the AP story this morning about how the people around Ryan are already planning what he'll do should the Romney/Ryan ticket lose. You can hear the Alka Seltzer tablets plopping into the glasses of water at Romney HQ now. My favorite part of the article was this:

That is why some of Ryan's biggest boosters are considering whether it wouldn't be better for Ryan to resign from the House. He could write a book — "saving America" is a theme often bandied about — or teach at a university.

After all, on the campaign trail, Ryan is as much lecturer as campaigner. Aides routinely set up giant video screens so Ryan can use visual aids to walk audiences through the minutiae of budget politics. Graphs and charts are as common as yard signs and American flags at some events, with Ryan settling into his role as explainer in chief.

It's no accident he embraces the "wonk" label aggressively. It could make him an attractive figure as a guest lecturer or visiting professor.

Ah academia - the last refuge of failed VP candidates. I'm insulted and that means Romney has now lost the key swing demographic: liberal Jewish political science professors born in the northeast, now living in Los Angeles. I don't see a path to victory in Ohio without that group.