Too Many Boring White Guys In This Election

Until Mitt Romney picked Paul Ryan as his vice president for the 2012 Republican nomination, I wasn’t aware that he had a monopoly on being a boring white guy. I guess that’s better than being an angry old white guy trying to buy the elections. But I don’t think that he’s the ultimate boring white guy, although he might be the last one that Republicans will nominate for a while.

I like being a boring white guy to keep my writing identity a secret in Silicon Vally. People take one look at me, they look away and think about something else. I’m an anonymous computer technician by day. An aspiring writer, blogger and entrepreneur by night. The two are separate and different from each other, like Bruce Wayne and the Batman. (I’m not a Clark Kent fan, so Superman can suck it!) Being boring has its advantages if you want to live an anonymous life in public while promoting a brand name on the Internet.

As for Romney, I think he made a serious mistake in picking a Sarah Palin/Mini-Me clone.

We saw this fiasco before in 2008 with John McCain. He wanted to pick Joe Lieberman as his vice president pick but the Republican establishment didn’t want a Independent Democrat on the ticket. If he was as much as a maverick as everyone claimed he was, he should have told the establishment to eff themselves and fight for his choice on the convention floor. That didn’t happen. His revenge for not getting his vice president pick was Sarah Palin, who had the sex appeal that he sorely lacked, energized the Republican base like nothing else, and revived the realty TV show industry.

I don’t think Ryan can do any better than Palin, if his first solo outing is any indication. Plus his refusal to release more than two years of tax returns is a serious strike against him in my book. Republicans need to be more transparent and less manipulative with the public about the taxes they paid and the taxes they want everyone else to pay. Like Palin before him, he has the sex appeal that Romney sorely lacks, energizes the Republican base like nothing else, and may be a serious contender for the 2016 presidential election.

But Ryan won’t save Romney from himself—or the Tea Party. Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post explains what Romney should have done for his vice president pick: “If you are the Republican nominee and The Wall Street Journal editorial page, The Weekly Standard and The National Review are all urging you to do the same thing, run the other way.”

The only non-boring white guy in this election will be Vice President Joe Biden, who can be counted on to put a foot or two into his mouth. At least, when he’s not washing his car on the White House driveway.