Romney's rock and a hard place

I was wrong the other day when I blogged that the media dialogue on the upside-down Romney-Ryan ticket "will be fun to watch."

Actually, it will be excruciating. The "upside-down" metaphor, borrowed from the upside-down, or "under water" mortgages created by the housing collapse, means that Ryan has greater value to the ultra-conservative Tea Party G.O.P. base than Romney does. (I predicted media would quickly pick up the upside-down theme, and it has already started to happen. Sample quote from a news story: "In fact, at times it seemed as if the Wisconsin congressman was at the top of the Republican ticket instead of Mr. Romney.")

I would expect the base, through spokespersons like Palin, Bachmann and Limbaugh, would want to seize the Ryan Opportunity by asking for more conservatism from Romney.

Thus we may find growing evidence that, by selecting Ryan as his VP running mate, Romney wedged himself between a rock and a hard place. If he moves even closer to the Tea Party agenda, he will lose moderate and centrist Republican support, from both party leaders and voters. Believe me, that slice of the G.O.P. really knows what it feels like to be a Trouser. Who would they vote for? Maybe a yellow dog. Remember the "Yellow Dog Democrats" from the early 20th century? They would vote for a yellow dog, if it was a Democrat. A Yellow Dog Republican in 2012 would vote for a yellow dog, or an incumbent named Obama, if it wasn't a Tea Partyer.

If Romney resists further Tea Party advances, he keeps centrist support but invites not solicitation, but fury, from Palin, Bachmann and Limbaugh, who might well begin to suggest that the G.O.P. convention replace Romney with Ryan at the top of the ticket. In fact, I must hedge my view a bit, and suggest that a G.O.P. convention (it starts Aug. 27) embroiled on that issue would be fun to watch, even great fun. If that happened, though, who would be chosen as Ryan's VP running mate? That will be the excruciating part.