Paul Ryan for Romney VP?

Welcome to O-Pinion. I'm associate editor Fannie Flono, your host today.

With conventional wisdom continuing to anoint Mitt Romney as the GOP presidential nominee as he racks up more and more primary wins - including an expected victory in Wisconsin today, conservative columnist William Kristol has a sobering analysis in the Weekly Standard of GOP and Romney's general election chances. He says the Republican campaign is more backward-looking than forward-looking, depending on voters unhappiness with the incumbent rather than plotting a different, better path ahead for the country. In a general election, "such campaigns degenerate into endless sniping about various misstatements and gaffes by both candidates, and put great emphasis on tactical moves and get-out-the-vote trench warfare in key states. ... Obama could win such a campaign," he said. The good news, Kristol says, is "that Romney is capable of turning around an enterprise that’s likely to fail. The bad news is that it’s harder to turn one around if the failure isn’t yet obvious. The irony is that a Romney victory in the primaries will then pose the ultimate test of his ability as a turnaround artist."

Josh Kraushaar of the National Journal is already looking ahead past a Romney nomination win, and tagging possible running mates. He says House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan "merits serious consideration."

"With a victory in the Wisconsin primary tonight, Mitt Romney would be in commanding position for the nomination - and he can thank one of the state's most prominent Republicans for the help. House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan has been a regular on Romney's Wisconsin roadshow, and the two have bonded during their time together. It's not surprising: Both Ryan and Romney are wonks, less comfortable in the glad-handing aspect of politics. Ryan has embraced Romney's candidacy, and Romney has embraced Ryan's entitlement-reforming budget proposal... With Ryan, Romney would be getting a running mate whose policy ideas would take center stage (a risk, to be sure) but whose personality wouldn't overshadow the nominee.

Ryan's policies are set for a smackdown today, if advance notices of a speech President Barack Obama plans to give to the Associated Press' Annual Luncheon today are on point. The president is expected to call a budget proposal Ryan has released “radical” and a “Trojan horse."

“It’s a Trojan horse. Disguised as deficit reduction plan, it's really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country,” Obama is expected to say. “It's nothing but thinly veiled social Darwinism.”

Obama's getting smacked himself for his comments about the Supreme Court and its decision expected this summer on the health-care reform law. The Weekly Standard's Jeffrey Anderson calls him out for saying: "I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress... And I’d just remind conservative commentators that for years what we’ve heard is the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law.”

Anderson said "these comments will surely make a great many Americans scratch their heads and wonder: How can a graduate of Harvard Law School, a former part-time lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, and the current president of the United States, suggest an apparent lack of awareness of the doctrine of judicial review? Contrary to Obama’s contention, however, the Court’s power to strike down unconstitutional congressional acts has repeatedly been exercised (sometimes legitimately, sometimes not)."

It's been tit-for-tat this election season, and the body blows are getting harder as the season goes on.