Are Romney and Ryan Putting the 'Downer' in Down Ballot?

In recent interviews, Mitts on R-money has insisted that his campaign doesn't need to turn around.

Meanwhile, Republican senators are distancing themselves from Romney and Ryan as fast as they can run away.

Among members of Congress, the score is a bit more mixed; for example Chip Cravaack dutifully sock-puppets any and every line from the GOP.  He falls in line like a domino with the slightest nudge.

But it is likely to hurt him, going on right wingnut talk radio to double down with Mittens and the lyin' Ryan on the 47%.

It's hurting the Republicans in Wisconsin, where the Tammy /Tommy race is shifting towards Tammy for Senate.

Meanwhile, Paul Ryan is steadily losing ground to Rob Zerban in the race for his Congressional seat, and it doesn't look as if he and Romney can carry Wisconsin for the GOP either.  The New York Times wrote this about the campaigns in Wisconsin:

A Congressional official with ties to the Ryan camp said the congressman, who is also running for re-election, has a Plan B: Return to Congress, use his positions on both the Budget and the Ways and Means Committees to seize a prominent role in a sweeping overhaul of the tax code, and use that as a springboard back into presidential politics on his own record.
If the Republican ticket loses in November, the rush by Mr. Ryan and other 2016 hopefuls to position themselves for the Iowa caucuses “is going to look like Best Buy the night after Thanksgiving,” said Craig Robinson, a former political director of the Republican Party of Iowa. “I hate to say this, but if Ryan wants to run for national office again, he’ll probably have to wash the stench of Romney off of him.”

And the USA Today / Gallup Poll shows Ryan failing, as Mitt Romney is losing ground overall, but especially in swing states.

This story has been updated to specify the views of registered voters in the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll about Paul Ryan. It will also appear in Tuesday's editions.

Our original post begins here:

Americans don't believe GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney hit a home run with his choice of Paul Ryan as a running mate, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, with more of the public giving him lower marks than high ones. 

 Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman, is seen as only a "fair" or "poor" choice by 42% of Americans vs. 39% who think he is an "excellent" or "pretty good" vice presidential choice.

The USA TODAY/Gallup survey also finds 48% of Americans view Ryan as qualified to be president if something should happen to Romney, while 29% do not and 23% were undecided. Only Palin, then the governor of Alaska, and Quayle, a two-term senator from Indiana, were rated lower than Ryan.

Down ballot of course, means candidates in races lower down the ballot below the Presidential race which with the Vice Presidential candidate, is usually the first entry at the top of the first page on a ballot. The usual order is Senate races, followed by Congressional races, followed by state amendments, state office races, and down through county and more local races and issues.

Despite enormously greater financial support for Ryan, his opponent in the Congressinal race, Rob Zerban, has been gaining ground.  It doesn't appear that Paul Ryan is all that well loved in his own Congressional district in Wisconsin, according to 'Paul Ryan Watch' commenting on the latest polling (Maslin is Zerban's pollster):

From Maslin's memo:

Ryan’s favorable rating has declined to 54% positive, his job rating is 55% and his reelect is 54%—all this before the beginning of an active campaign against Ryan. When voters hear positive information about Rob Zerban and Paul Ryan, Ryan’s support weakens further to 52%. Rob Zerban’s description receives a better than 3 to 1 positive reaction.
And, after respondents hear one additional paragraph description linking Ryan to the Republican leadership in Congress and describing his authorship of the House budget plan, his support falls below 50% and his favorable rating becomes like Obama’s and Walker’s—dead even at 46% positive and 46% negative. And... Rob Zerban trails Ryan by only six points after this very brief exposition of Ryan’s signature idea, 49-43%, with undecideds holding nearly unanimously negative views of Congress in general and more than 80% saying they have either a negative or neutral feeling toward Ryan at the end of the poll.

The $64,000,000 question for the next 30 days is will Romney and Ryan make more or larger mistakes, or will the Obama/Biden campaign make equally bad errors - unlikely,  but not impossible.

The 2012 election cycle is demonstrating that the right wing extremist views are a pig that no amount of money can pretty up with lies and lipstick.


Increasingly, the races are being 'nationalized', or more strongly linked to both national party platforms and to the race for President, and Vice President. As the Obama/Biden ticket is surging ahead, some right wing candidates are doubling down on their affiliations, while others are bailing.  Following the right wing money, both official GOP support and the support of the superPACs, the advertising money has already dried up for Romney and Ryan in New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, and been shifted to try to win - or not loose too much ground - in the Senate.  Pundits like Nate Silver are predicting unexpected probability of the Democrats not only holding the Senate, but getting their 60 seat majority back.  It is looking more difficult, but not so impossible as once believed, that the Democrats could win back the House as well.

I have my own prediction; if the present trends continue, and if Romney does not do unexpectedly spectacularly in debates against Obama - which is not Romney's strength, but is Obama's - then I predict that Romney / Ryan will fail to carry their own home states, and might only carry those same southern states that Goldwater won. 

However given that Romney has insulted the lower 47% of non-income tax paying voters, who dominate the red states of the deep South............he might have shot himself in the foot in those states too.

Personally, I'm just looking forward to the GOP congressional candidates in MN, like Bachmann and Cravaack slide so far down in popularity while holding the party line and falling in line to support Romney and Ryan that they just sink so far down in the election numbers they drop right out of Congress.  They can take the tea party out the door with them.