Condoleezza Rice is a brilliant intellect, plays Chopin like Horowitz, speaks French and has a PhD.

That means her constituent group consists of close friends and relatives.

The Republicans will be choosimg VP candidates from the Hispanic community in the future, but Marco Rubio, Brian Sandoval (Nevada governor), and the governor of New Mexico (can't recall her name) are all inexperienced, all serving their first terms in elective office.

Paul Davis Ryan is Roman Catholic, of Irish-American stock, and can be a scrappy street fighter if called upon to do so.

Mitt Romney is like Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush. He is a hopelessly nice guy and just can't muster the nastiness it usually takes to win important elections in the US. Ryan should help here.