Imagine 2016

By Sniffles

It looks as if the London Olympics have ended successfully. That must be a relief to Willard Mitt Romney, who no longer needs to feel disconcerted about them. Just one of the many, many things Silly Willy has called wrong.

And speaking of which, we cats were wondering how the GOP's 2016 hopefuls were reacting to The Wall Street Journal's Paul Ryan pick. See, we figured their comments would give us hints on their plans for four years from now. If they lavished praise on Ryan himself, they're probably not running. If their comments were more generic, they've already bought plane tickets for Iowa. For example:

Marco Rubio (not running): "Paul Ryan is a courageous reformer who understands our nation's challenges, blah blah blah...."

Rubio again (running): "The Romney-Ryan ticket offers the American people visionary leadership, blah blah blah..."

Rob Portman (not running): "Paul Ryan is an accomplished public servant and one of my best friends in Congress, blah blah blah...."

Jeb Bush (running): "This courageous choice is the type of leadership American voters deserve, blah blah blah...”

Bobby Jindal (not running): "Paul is a good friend and one of the smartest guys I served with in Congress, blah blah blah..."

Tim Pawlenty (running, although goodness knows why): "It’s a great ticket, blah blah blah..."

Rick Santorum (running, although trying to throw us off the scent with a few pro-Ryan sidebars): "I look forward to supporting the Romney-Ryan ticket in the weeks to come, blah blah blah....”

Newt Gingrich (not running): "Paul Ryan is the largest step the GOP has taken towards solving the country’s problems since Reagan and Kemp, blah blah blah...”

Chris Christie (definitely running): The Romney-Ryan team is uniquely positioned to blah blah blah...." (Note to Christie: When you book your flight to Des Moines, buy two seats.)

Sarah Palin.... who cares? As usual, she made no sense anyway.

P.S. While we're on the subject, we cats loved this pre-Ryan story about the GOP '16-ers, especially the hilarious quote about how positioning and preening are part of "the normal rhythms of the closing days of a national race." Closing days?!? It's August! Willard hasn't even been nominated yet! (But then, as Ed Rollins pointed out, "People don't think Romney's got that great a shot. He hasn't run a very good campaign.")