Pressure on Romney to pick Ryan unrelenting

Can't imagine why conservatives don't trust him. The conservative "intellectual" wing of the Republican Party isn't relenting in their clamoring for Mitt Romney to prove that he's really severely conservative by giving the veep nod to their Ayn Rand wet dream of a candidate, Paul Ryan. The pitfalls of making the Ryan plan central to the ticket are one problem the more pragmatic Republicans have with this potential pick. Ryan's less-than-stellar private sector work experience is another.

Ryan's time working in the business world is limited to the brief period he spent at his family's construction business in Janesville, Wis. That was only a matter of months, though. According to published reports, he returned to Wisconsin after the 1992 loss of his then-boss, Sen. Bob Kasten, but was back in Washington the next year working for Empower America. He returned to the family firm once more as a management consultant in 1997 but spent just a few months there before launching his winning congressional bid the next year.

What, no job creating? All his formative years spent as a D.C. insider? Irrelevant, says one of Ryan's top cheerleaders. "His experience is as a bold and effective conservative reformer," said Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol. The key word here being "conservative." Kristol, the Wall Street Journal, the nihilistic wing of the Republican Party all don't trust that Romney is truly reformed from his Massachusetts-loving, Romneycare ways. (Thanks, Andrea Saul!)

As Jed pointed out, this isn't about what's best for Romney in winning this election. It's about forcing their political orthodoxy on the ticket, orthodoxy that they see entirely lacking in Romney. They have no faith in Romney as a movement conservative, and the only way he can prove it to them is by bowing to their will and teaming up with Ryan. Not that that's going to make Romney any more trustworthy, any more one of them. It just might indicate that he'll be a little bit easier to control.