Almost forty years ago, Monty Python ran a skit called “Upper Class Twit of the Year”. It is beginning to feel like Mitt Romney is actually in the running for that award this year. Today, Romney rolled out his choice- or at least his base’s choice- to be Vice President. Romney couldn’t even manage to roll out Paul Ryan without a gaffe introducing Ryan as the next President of the United States:

Ryan has voted twice to enshrine marriage bigotry into the United States Constitution even though he did vote in favor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Still, he voted against the Matthew Shepard Act which enforces federal penalties for homophobic and racist hate crimes. He also voted against adoption rights for lesbians and gays in Washington, DC. He is an ardently anti-woman candidate voting against women’s right consistently. He even co-sponsored an amendment to the Constitution to try and give rights to fetuses called the Personhood Amendment. This is a widely unpopular amendment attempting to impose radical Christian theocratic views of when life starts on everyone. Ryan, despite his adherence to Ayn Rand’s economic philosophies, is an ardent Catholic theocrat.

ThinkProgress notes about Ryan and Rand that “Ryan heaped praise on Ayn Rand, a 20th-century libertarian novelist best known for her philosophy that centered on the idea that selfishness is ‘virtue.’ Rand described altruism as ‘evil,’ condemned Christianity for advocating compassion for the poor, viewed the feminist movement as ‘phony,’ and called Arabs ‘almost totally primitive savages.’” In the past, Ryan has called Rand his inspiration for getting into public service- ostensibly so that he can dismantle the government- and even given her books away as presents.

In a call for Senate donations, Makos Molitsas of The Daily Kos stated:

Two different national polls released this week show President Obama ahead by 7 points. A third national poll—from Fox News!—puts Obama up by 9 points. Add up all the national polls, and Obama leads by almost six points. Further, swing state polls show him with 332 electoral votes compared to only 206 for Mitt Romney.

Republicans thought that the Citizens United decision and their rich billionaires would give them a leg up, but after $100 million already spent attacking Obama, the president is still kicking Romney’s butt. We are poised to hold firm in the Senate and even the House is coming into play where, worse case scenario, we significantly chop that Republican majority down.

During the announcement, Romney stated ‘We are offering a positive governing agenda that will lead to economic growth.” Ryan went on to say “Next January, our economy will begin a comeback with the Romney Plan for a Stronger Middle Class that will lead to more jobs and more take home pay for working Americans.” Of course, they plan on doing that by raising taxes on the Middle Class, lowering them on the Upper Class, and cutting social programs for the Lower Classes.

Heck, Conservatives are not all together happy with this choice. David Frum over at The Daily Beast stated “Romney will now have to spend the next months explaining how and why shrinking Medicare after 2023 will create prosperity in 2013. Economic conditions are so tough—the Obama reelection proposition is so weak—that Romney may win anyway. But wow, the job just got harder.”

Frum also stated “Paul Ryan is wrong, wrong, wrong to imagine that a society can deal with rising social-insurance costs while entirely exempting Republican-voting age cohorts and without asking for anything from its richest people—in fact while simultaneously delivering those people a huge tax cut.”