There’s been a bunch of hubbub lately about a ton of duplicitous GOP “strategists” saying one thing on camera about Paul Ryan as Mitt’s VP pick , and then doing lots of whining and pants-wetting about it behind the scenes to “journalists.”

Many people have different takes on the phenomenon but I think one of the key principles at work here is the fact that Republicans only seem to do well at the polls when voters have no idea what they really intend to do when they get elected.

Take this collection of thoughts from Politico:

[S]kepticism about Ryan among GOP strategists is striking. …

They think the Ryan pick is a disaster for the GOP. Many of these people don’t care that much about Romney — they always felt he faced an improbable path to victory — but are worried that Ryan’s vocal views about overhauling Medicare will be a millstone for other GOP candidates in critical House and Senate races.

They’re worried about inviting Medicare — usually death for Republicans — into the campaign. They’re worried it sidetracks the jobs issue. They’re worried he’ll expose the fact that Romney doesn’t have a budget plan. Most of all, they’re worried that Romney was on track to lose anyway — and now that feels all but certain. …

Another strategist emailed midway through Romney and Ryan’s first joint event Saturday: “The good news is that this ticket now has a vision. The bad news is that vision is basically just a chart of numbers used to justify policies that are extremely unpopular.”

Over the years, Republicans have gotten really good at publicly pushing vague bromides, terrifying boogeymen and attractive-sounding snake oil tonics.  Freedom, evil socialism, turning America into Europe and scary brown people over the border who want to take our jobs, among others, are all excellent pablum for a country of people who don’t take their civic responsibilities seriously and only occasionally tune in to hear about current events for a fraction of a second (i.e., “low information voters”).

With that in mind, we now turn to the Paul Ryan plan to force granny to eat cat food in a decade or two.

So long as the Ryan Plan circulates mainly in Washington, and it’s masturbated over continuously by the ever-overstimulated “both-sides-do-it” punditocracy, the narratives that filter down to the little people who don’t care enough to pay attention are, “Republicans are offering up their own competing plan to tackle our huge budget deficits!”, “Paul Ryan is considered to be the intellectual leader of the House GOP, with serious proposals to address serious problems!” and other such typical bullshit.

However, when we stick the Ryan Plan into the 350,000-horsepower grist mill of a Presidential race, low-information voters might actually start to hear about all of the horrible details about all of the horrible things that Republicans are planning to do when the country’s back is turned!! {faint}  This is especially bad when poll after poll shows that most of America vomits when they learn about what the Ryan Plan actually contains.  Even more so when tons of people can’t even bring themselves to believe that someone would actually propose something that horrible.

Like they say, sunlight is the best disinfectant.  It’s too bad that Democrats are usually so inept at pulling back the curtain and letting the sunlight in.  So far, however, I think Obama has a good chance of doing a pretty good job of it this fall.

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