Gibson Runs Away from Ryan

As we all know by now, Romney picked Paul Ryan, author of the much-maligned Ryan Budget, as his running mate. Interestingly, Nate Silver at the New York Times makes the argument that Ryan is the most radical major party candidate since the dawn of the 20th century, and that he's at least as conservative as nutcase Michelle Bachmann:

Various statistical measures of Mr. Ryan peg him as being quite conservative. Based on his Congressional voting record, for instance, the statistical system DW-Nominate evaluates him as being roughly as conservative as Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.

By this measure, in fact, which rates members of the House and Senate throughout different time periods on a common ideology scale, Mr. Ryan is the most conservative Republican member of Congress to be picked for the vice-presidential slot since at least 1900. He is also more conservative than any Democratic nominee was liberal, meaning that he is the furthest from the center. (The statistic does not provide scores for governors and other vice-presidential nominees who never served in Congress.)

In other words, Ryan makes Dick Cheney look like Mr. Rogers.

Sensing that this could mean trouble when it comes to holding his seat, our own Chris Gibson today took a step back from the Ryan lunacy:

“I first want to congratulate my colleague on his selection to be the Vice Presidential nominee. Paul is passionate about our country, with strong views about where we need to move to create jobs and restore fiscal responsibility. Others have strong views too, and ultimately, I believe that we need to be able to forge a strong bipartisan consensus that unites Americans to get our friends and neighbors back to work and to make the right decisions to ensure our best days are still in front of us.”

Yep. All nice and bipartisan, Gibson says. And I can see why. Ryan wants to replace Medicare with a voucher system that's not pegged to inflation (and that Forbes Magazine finds ludicrous). Ryan believes that life begins at conception, period, and would criminalize abortion to such an extent that it would be considered first degree murder. Ryan wants to raise taxes on poor folks, and cut taxes for his rich pals.

This kind of thing won't fly in the Hudson Valley and Gibson knows it. I would expect him to avoid going anywhere near the national ticket. Doing so would only reinforce the fact that the modern GOP is dangerously out-of-touch with New York State.

And with Gibson apparently stuck in the low 40s, poll-wise, he's going to have to move to the left if he wants to win.