Punditology Veepstakes: Which political nerd reigns supreme?

Kari Chisholm FacebookTwitterWebsite

Now that Mitt Romney has picked Paul Ryan to be his running mate, the question arises: Who picked it right?

For starters, no one correctly picked BOTH the candidate and the timing right.

We had 77 prognosticators participate, and Paul Ryan was the fourth most-likely pick. 25 folks picked Rob Portman, 13 picked Marco Rubio, and 7 picked Tim Pawlenty. Just five people correctly named Paul Ryan.

Just two people correctly picked Saturday, August 11, as the date. They are environmental consultant Dwayne Meadows and political activist Dan Lombardi.

So, who correctly called Paul Ryan?

To all five of you, we bow down before your awesome powers of prognostication! Great work. We'll give Matt Hodson a bonus huzzah, because he selected Friday 8/10 as the date - and that's when word started leaking out about the Ryan pick.

Meanwhile, it's clear that Mitt Romney didn't take our advice. We asked participants to make a veep recommendation by assigning up to 100 points to a huge number of choices. They could assign 100 points to a sole recommendation, evenly split points to name a bunch of folks, or weight their points to suggest a ranking.

Just 12 people (out of 77) recommended that Romney pick Ryan -- ranking Ryan #8 overall.

On the jump, our top 20 recommendations for Romney.

#1Sen. Marco Rubio (FL)1030 pts
#2Sen. Rob Portman (OH)884 pts
#3Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty (MN)583 pts
#4Former Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice470 pts
#5Gov. Chris Christie (NJ)362 pts
#6Gov. Susana Martinez (NM)275 pts
#7Former Gov. Jeb Bush (FL)273 pts
#8Rep. Paul Ryan (WI)270 pts
#9Mayor Michael Bloomberg (NY)245 pts
#10Former Gov. Jon Huntsman (UT)235 pts
#11Gov. Bobby Jindal (LA)230 pts
#11Gov. Brian Sandoval (NV)230 pts
#13Sen. Kelly Ayotte (NH)225 pts
#14Gov. Bob McDonnell (VA)205 pts
#15Former Gov. Tom Ridge (PA)190 pts
#16Sen. John Thune (SD)185 pts
#17Gov. Scott Walker (WI)175 pts
#18Gov. Nikki Haley (SC)152 pts
#19Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (AR)140 pts
#19Gen. David Petraeus140 pts
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    David Frum was surprised, a supporter of Romney. He says "Romney did a huge favor for President Obama by picking Ryan." http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/13/opinion/frum-romney-ryan/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

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    I totally underestimated the fear and stupidity that Romney is capable of. I thought he would do the rational thing politically and choose Portman. In this Politico article the GOP Pols are freaking out. This choice pleases some of the base but doesn't win one single vote and potentially loses a lot of votes over Medicare and Soc Sec and brands the entire GOP with the extremist, radical, and reckless mark from top to bottom. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/79697_Page2.html

    "In more than three dozen interviews with Republican strategists and campaign operatives — old hands and rising next-generation conservatives alike — the most common reactions to Ryan ranged from gnawing apprehension to hair-on-fire anger that Romney has practically ceded the election."

    Congratulations to the pundits who saw it coming.

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