The Wall Street Journal takes aim at the “bedwetter caucus,” its term for the anonymous “Republican strategists and campaign operatives” who were fretting over the Ryan pick in a Politico article yesterday:
Republicans who believe in something can console themselves in knowing that these “pros” are reflecting the Washington conventional wisdom. Nearly everyone in the Beltway thinks it’s impossible to reform entitlements like Medicare, and or even to restrain the size of government, so why would a candidate be foolish enough to try?
This crowd is good at forecasting the political future as a repetition of the past and present, but as Irving Kristol used to say, they aren’t very good at predicting the turns. We’ll see if this year is one of those turns.
I’d also add that stories like the one in Politico are a hallmark of Washington. After any major political decision, there’s always a losing side, and the losing side is almost always willing to talk. Obviously not every Republican “strategist” (a ridiculously vague term that could encompass half the city) in Washington supported Paul Ryan for VP. Some actively supported other VP options, and believed their favored candidate was the smartest choice for whatever reason. So they spilled their guts to Politico when someone else was chosen. You can bet some version of this story would have run no matter who Romney picked, just with different sources voicing slightly different complaints.
In a way, this is good for Romney. He’s been criticized as a play-it-safe candidate without a political core, who bases his decisions on what the latest polls say. Even if it just looks like he’s going against “conventional wisdom” in Washington, that can only help his image.
