Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney's Heavy Metal Indulgence

What nerve! While accepting his vice presidential candidate nomination Wednesday night Paul Ryan let slip a confession: Mitt Romney’s taste in music is completely “has been.” “There are songs on his iPod which I’ve heard on the campaign bus — and on many hotel elevators… I hope it’s not a deal breaker, Mitt. But my playlist starts with AC/DC and ends with Zeppelin.”

The thousands of delegates and supporters who filled the Tampa convention arena loved it and gave a lengthy standing ovation to the little progeny who, since the announcement of his nomination in mid-August, has put a bit of pep back into Romney’s campaign. Having thus proven his absolute impartiality regarding elevator music Ryan was able to insist with yet more oomph that Mitt Romney is the candidate that he needs to be in order to “lasso” America.

Paul and Mitt have a “plan” to “generate 12 million new jobs over the next four years,” he announced. Aside from promising to keep federal government expenses below 20 percent of the GNP (in comparison to 25 percent today), the vice presidential candidate hasn’t at all gone into the details of said plan. But this is not what the delegates, who are there to win an election more than to tie themselves up in explicitly detailed promises, were expecting anyway.

Paul Ryan has above all sounded the alarm on Barack Obama, a president who has been all talk and let the national debt accumulate to $15 trillion, “more than all the troubled governments of Europe combined.” “It all started off with stirring speeches, Greek columns (a reference to the 2008 Democratic convention in Denver, which clinched Obama’s nomination), the thrill of something new,” Ryan concluded. “Now all that’s left is a presidency adrift, surviving on slogans that already seem tired, grasping at a moment that has already passed, like a ship trying to sail on yesterday’s wind.” Between heavy metal and poetry fit for a leisurely boat ride Paul Ryan seems to have more than passed his convention entrance exam. Personally, one just wants to ask why he has decked himself in an all black ensemble like an undertaker, which makes him appear more immature than usual. But this is little more than a small visual detail — not very important compared to what is at stake in the election.