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Noam Scheiber Continues to Push His Interpretation of the Romney Pick...

NS thinks that the Ryan pick is aimed at weakening conservative Republicans--if Romney wins the conservative Republicans' most aggressive voice is neutered in the vice president's office, and if Romney loses the conservative Republicans suffer the blame:

The Psychology Of The Ryan Pick: Given that Team Romney believed it was headed for defeat, there were one of two ways to respond:

  1. With a genuinely bold pick that could have beefed up its margins among key demographic groups: women, independents, disgruntled Democrats, Latinos, etc.

  2. With a pick whose only value was to excite conservatives (whom, I should reiterate, were already highly motivated).

The ideal option 1 would be a moderate woman or a moderate Latino, possibly even a Democrat… your basic high-risk/high-reward proposition that marginally increases your chance of winning (which are low to begin with), but also increases the chance you lose by a large margin, because people see it as a gimmick.  

But Romney didn’t go that route. He went with option 2--a pick that does nothing to increase his chance of winning, but does increase the chance he loses by a large margin, because it hurts with the demographic groups we’re talking about. 

Why would Team Romney do that? Here’s where we get into the realm of psychology. I’d guess--and I won’t pretend it’s anything other than speculation--they worried that if they went with option 1 and lost big, then the blame was on them. In the case of a Palin or Rubio-type figure, the conventional wisdom would be that they were reckless, a la McCain. If they went with a moderate woman or a moderate Latino or a Democrat, the base would insist they lost because they strayed too far from the Truth…. By picking Ryan, on the other hand, they won nothing but validation from conservatives, who have now signed on in blood, and who will share the blame if the ticket goes down.

Just knowing what we know about how humans work, that strikes me as a much more appealing proposition. But, of course, it’s also incredibly risk-averse.

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