Something tells me that I won’t see any Romney/Ryan bumper stickers at the senior active living community near my house.

In what is no surprise, Mitt Romney gave up on wooing the following votes quite some time ago — minorities, women who want control over their reproductive freedom, LGBTs who want civil equality, the low-info poor, etc. And we all know he had the “get that Negro out of the White House” vote from day one.

However, I cannot fathom why he would toss out the most reliable demo at the polls — seniors. With the pick of Rep. Paul Ryan (@paulryanvp), I guess Mittens isn’t interested in the long ball – it indicates he needs to shore up his base. There’s going to have to be some serious voodoo employed to win independent voters. But that’s what the sh*tload of money raised so far is for — spin and lies. It’s all the GOP has left.

In what is emblematic of this ace campaign, the Mitt Romney Veep App Spaminator didn’t even announce the choice until this AM, long after the Twittersphere BLEW UP with speculation, leaks and confirmed sources spread the news.

And if you were an also-ran, like Tim Pawlenty and Rob Portman, Mitt reportedly outsourced those phone calls to his son Tagg. Classy.

Mitt Romney selected Ryan for his “strength” and worldview on domestic policy — after all, the young veep nom — the Wisconsin member of Congress is 42 — has advocated for cutting programs for the poor and elderly, er, entitlements reform, since 1995 when he was a Hill staffer.

[Here are 10 videos of Ryan to get a feel for some of his interesting political history.]

Not included in that above list of videos is what may be a key strategy of the Romney-Ryan ticket when it comes to health care reform and the elderly — mandate a copy of P90X, the Tony Horton fitness video series that Ryan uses to stay pumped up and pimps to his colleagues.

And what about gay rights? Well, let’s just say that Mittens can boast that Paul Ryan has earned his way onto the ticket on that front (Chris Geidner at Buzzfeed):

Ryan only scored more than 0 percent on the Human Rights Campaign’s congressional scorecard once in the 107th through 111th congresses, and that was with a 10 percent score, denoting his vote for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in 2007. Ryan joined with 34 Republicans in voting for the bill, which would have prohibited workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. Unlike the bill voted on in 2007, the current version of the legislation also would prohibit discrimination based on gender identity.

Ryan voted against repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 2010 and against the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Protection Act in 2009, two key legislative accomplishments that Obama has pointed to as a sign of his success on advancing an agenda of LGBT equality.

Mitt Romney is against ENDA but did support it at one point before the Etch-A-Sketch was shaken for the presidential race. On marriage equality the new ticket is in alignment. Ryan:

 “I believe that marriage should remain between a man and a woman, and I have heard from many of the people I represent who are concerned about activist judges abusing their power and rewriting our society’s definition of marriage. I had hoped that this amendment wouldn’t be necessary, but increasingly it appears that laws such as the Defense of Marriage Act will not be sufficient to protect marriage from certain courts that distort state and federal constitutional law.”

I wonder if Team Mittens will debut Ryan by handing out Chick-Fil-A sandwiches for extra effect at the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk, VA this AM (neither has served their country in the military).

Oh — just for fun — I thought you’d like to read this surreal statement from GOProud, the only national gay group to endorse Governor Romney’s Presidential bid.

“The selection of Paul Ryan is a bold and inspired pick,” said Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director of GOProud. “Paul Ryan has been the architect of policies that would benefit all Americans, especially gay Americans.”

“Paul Ryan is one of the few political leaders anywhere in the country willing to tell the American people the truth about the unprecedented budget crisis we are facing, and – more importantly – willing to put forward bold plans to put this country back on the road to fiscal solvency,” continued LaSalvia.

“Like all Americans, gays and lesbians in this country are concerned with the out-of-control spending and growing mountains of unsustainable federal debt,” said LaSalvia. “Gay Americans understand that without reforms – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will go bankrupt. The future prosperity for all Americans, regardless of their sexual orientation, is at stake if we do not act today.”

The Log Cabin Republicans chose to highlight the crumb of an ENDA vote.

“Congressman Paul Ryan is a strong choice for vice president, and his addition to the GOP ticket will help Republican candidates up and down the ballot,” said R. Clarke Cooper, Log Cabin Republicans Executive Director. “As chairman of the House Budget Committee and author of the Republican “path to prosperity” that provided the blueprint for serious spending cuts in this Congress, nobody is more qualified to articulate a conservative economic vision to restore the American economy and stimulate job creation

At the same time, Congressman Ryan’s 2007 vote in favor of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act and his consistent willingness to engage with Log Cabin on a range of issues speaks to his record as a fair-minded policymaker. Overall, while Log Cabin Republicans have not completed the endorsement process for the 2012 presidential election, this is a choice that all Republicans can be excited about, and which sends a good message about the kind of campaign Governor Romney wants to run, and the kind of president Governor Romney wants to be.”

Later on Saturday the dynamic duo will hop on the Mittens tour bus and will be heading my way (I think the stop will be in Morrisville, near Research Triangle Park). So far I haven’t seen any Romney bumper stickers, but my wife says she’s see about 5-10 in Raleigh and on I-40, the main commuting corridor in the Triangle. In advance of Romney’s bus tour the Dems have its own bus on the road — “Romney Economics: The Middle Class Under the Bus” — and it is heading to NC today — arriving in Raleigh, Greensboro, and Charlotte to “highlight Mitt Romney’s record of failure as Governor of Massachusetts, the lack of support small businesses received from Governor Romney’s Administration and Romney’s proposed tax hike on middle-class families to pay for massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.”

Jason Easley at PoliticusUSA on one of the major challenges of running on domestic policy with Ryan as his foot soldier:

The Ryan choice would be symbolic of how desperate the Romney campaign has become. After claiming that they wouldn’t repeat John McCain’s mistakes of 2008, the Romney campaign is repeating one of McCain’s biggest errors. Paul Ryan is Mitt Romney’s game change. Much like McCain in 2008, the base is growing increasingly disgruntled and vocal about the direction of his campaign. Polls show Romney trailing Obama both nationally and in swing states. Romney needed to woo them. He needed a game changer. He apparently decided that he needed Paul Ryan. The choice of Ryan means that the Ryan budget and the privatization of Social Security and Medicare are going to be front and center this fall. By adding Ryan, Romney is going to have to also deal with the fact that Ryan’s budget is full of smoke and mirrors, and it actually raises the deficit.

UPDATE: Mitt introduced Paul Ryan as “the next President of the United States”…

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