IT'S ROMNEY/RYAN*

*-Just in case I am wrong, but the tea leaves do say otherwise

In less than eight hours, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is expected to announce that he will ask United States Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to be his running mate in the 2012 presidential election.
So as I note the tea leaves.
Consider this earlier today report from Robert Costa of National Review Online. He may have been the one to call it and do so early.
Jim Geraghty at the Campaign Spot explained how this now seems to be the way it goes down, based on the way Team McCain did it in 2008.
If one thinks that this is all a head fake and Mr. Romney is going to have someone else with him in Norfolk, Virginia in front of the U. S. S. Wisconsin, this reporting from Stephen Hayes and Bill Kristol at The Weekly Standard would suggest that the Wisconsin governor, Scott Walker, is ready to go all out regarding the choice.
Again, I do not believe it is a head fake of any kind. This is it.
So, what to make of this choice?
I think that it is a great choice.
Paul Ryan is the man that gets the problem in Washington. He wants to address cutting the debt, deficit and entitlement reform. He is totally on board with repealing and replacing the horrible Obamacare. He is veteran enough in Washington, yet still is seen as an outsider. He is a hawk on foreign policy. He is a Roman Catholic. And he is young.  Mr. Ryan is 42 years old.
Yes, I would have loved to see someone like the South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley, or United States senator, Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), but these are important people that need to be where they are. Mr. Rubio is probably one of, if not the leading conservative voice in the senate. He too is young and one can see him as a senate majority leader possibly sooner rather than later. After all, he was the Speaker of the House in the Florida House of Representatives.
Mrs. Haley needs to continue her reform agenda in Columbia. No doubt she is a fighter and survived a horrible primary and a narrow election win in 2010. And she has hit some bumps in the road. But reform, ah it is always hard. Ask Sarah Palin.
Paul Ryan will make a great number two and a superior vice-president to the dim bulb occupying that position today,  Joe Biden.
Tomorrow at this time, it will be official.
ROMNEY/RYAN '12
And the real campaign begins in earnest.