Presidential candidates often choose vice presidential partners, like good spouses, to fill in the places where they are weak. So it should not be a surprise that a notorious “small varmint” hunter like Mitt Romney picked as his running mate Rep. Paul Ryan, who instantly gives the Republicans a step up into the world of big-boy hunting.
Raised in a world of affluence and suburban splendor as the son of an American auto executive, Romney’s stab at playing everyman outdoorsman landed flat in his first run for president. "I'm not a big-game hunter,” the candidate announced in 2007. “I've always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will. I began when I was 15 or so and I have hunted those kinds of varmints since then."
If that’s how Romney & Co. rolled back in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., it was quite a different sort of hunting depicted in Saturday’s rollout of the Ryan candidacy. A Romney press release of just eight paragraphs introduced the 42-year old Wisconsin native as “an avid outdoorsman” and member of “his local archery association, the Janesville Bowmen.”
A quick flash to Ryan’s Facebook page delivers you a photo of Ryan — in full cammo and muddied boots — proudly posing with a big, hearty buck deer.
