Jeff Yang, IAFC Blogger
Jeff Yang is It's A Free Country's pop and politics blogger. He also writes the column Tao Jones for the Wall Street Journal Online. Follow him on Twitter at @originalspin.
Meme Patrol: The GOP's Herman and Eddie Munster Ticket
Saturday, August 11, 2012 - 01:30 PM
With Mitt Romney's surprise announcement of Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate (on the closing weekend of the London Olympics, no less! The guy can't stop stepping on British toes, can he?), the pundits are chiming in on whether the pick will help or hurt him in his bid for the White House. The reality? It hardly matters.
Romney was painted into a corner by his base, who demanded he buffer his conservative creds with an ideologically correct running mate. The most buzzed about veep candidates — Ryan, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, and others — were being publicly "vetted" primarily in order to test them as contenders for the top of the ticket in 2016, regardless of whether they'd help the flailing Romney campaign. (A possible Freudian slip acknowledging that reality? In unveiling his pick, Romney accidentally introduced Ryan as "the next president of the United States.")
Here at Meme Patrol, however, we're more interested in the fact that Ryan, with his porcelain-pale skin, deep-set eyes and a pronounced widow's peak, has long been snarked as an "Eddie Munster lookalike." Paired with Romney's long-faced, patrician features, the instant invention of a new meme — Herman and Eddie Munster in 2012! — was inevitable.
And look: Karoli, over at the Crooks & Liars blog, has already unleashed the digital hounds.
Attention, 'Shoppers! Time to get your cut, paste, blend and blur on. Here's Meme Patrol's take: A full GOP 2012 family portrait.
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Comments [4]
Thank you for share this post
@listener...Do you really think this ticket has a prayer? Romney's selection of Ryan turns the corner from 'focusing on the economy' to focusing on the ideological split left and right and a less-focused discussion on the proper role of government. Is this an argument that gets voters to the polls? Do you really think so? By picking Ryan, Mitt has moved his campaign further to the right which stands against the general wisdom of how to win a Presidential campaign. By picking Ryan, Mitt is essentially giving the finger to the Independents and Democrats. If he wins with this strategy, I would have a hard time not believing that plumbers stole it in the states with eVoting.
The only danger to an Obama re-election is that the polling has Romney/Ryan so far behind that many do not show up to vote giving the GOP a shot at keeping the House.
Let's see who laughs and who cries on November 7.
"..porcelain-pale skin, deep-set eyes and a pronounced widow's peak, has long been snarked as an "Eddie Munster lookalike."
Are those are the best remarks we can expect on short notice?
The good news is that some attention seekers will probably have eight years to sharpen the jibes against Romney/Ryan.
The adults govern and the kids throw spit balls....everybody wins.
I thougth this today....paul ryan has th same haircut as Eddie Munster..lmao!
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