Statistics Show Ryan a Risky Game Change like Sarah Palin

USA Today Gallop Poll

Only Dan Quayle in a 1988 Harris Poll of likely voters was viewed less positively than Ryan, with 52% rating Quayle as a "fair" or "poor" vice presidential choice. The Ryan poll includes all adults, not just registered voters.
. . . The poll also finds 17% of adults say they are more likely to vote for Romney in November because Ryan is his running mate -- about the same impact Sarah Palin had for John McCain four years ago among registered voters.
. . . Republicans, however, see the appeal in Ryan, who was hailed this weekend as a bold, innovative thinker by party stalwarts. The poll finds 36% of Republicans are now more likely to vote for Romney. In 2008, only 3 in 10 Republicans said the choice of Palin made them more likely to vote for McCain.

Nate Silver on 538 Blog: Ryan a Risky "Game Change"

. . . Why am I concluding that Mr. Romney would have chosen Mr. Ryan only if he felt he was losing? Because from a Politics 101 point of view, this isn’t the most natural choice.

. . .The last time an ordinary member of the House was elected vice president, and the last Republican, was more than 100 years ago: in 1908, when William Howard Taft and James S. Sherman, a New York congressman, were chosen by voters. (Coincidentally, that fall was also the last time that the Chicago Cubs won the World Series.)

Politics 101 suggests that you play toward the center of the electorate. Although this rule has more frequently been violated when it comes to vice-presidential picks, there is evidence that presidential candidates who have more “extreme” ideologies (closer to the left wing or the right wing than the electoral center) underperform relative to the economic fundamentals.

Various statistical measures of Mr. Ryan peg him as being quite conservative. Based on his Congressional voting record, for instance, the statistical system DW-Nominate evaluates him as being roughly as conservative as Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.