Late Friday, NBC News and the
Huffington Post reported that Mitt Romney had chosen
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his vice presidential nominee. The two will hold a joint campaign appearance in Norfolk, Virginia on Saturday morning aboard the USS Wisconsin, before hitting the trail together in advance of the GOP convention in Tampa in late August. The appeal for Romney is obvious: Ryan is telegenic (he's 42) with an impeccable reputation among conservatives as not just a policy wonk but a once-in-a-generation visionary. (For what it's worth, he also catches catfish
with his hands.) As
New York's Jonathan Chait explained
in a profile of Ryan in April, Ryan, more so than Romney himself, has become the face of the Republican party over the last two years.