go to the home page photo of Ruth Dudley Edwards, author and
journalist Sunday 19 August 2012  Battle for Veep is where the
action is  Two Irish-Americans slugging it out to be US vice-
president? Give me a ringside seat, says Ruth Dudley Edwards
It's four years since Republican Senator John McCain electrified
the US presidential election by choosing Sarah Palin as his
running mate.  Attractive, humorous and articulate, she had been
a tough, honest and effective governor of Alaska, but she was
destroyed by a hostile media who ridiculed what they saw as
rural redneckery and mercilessly exposed her lack of
intellectual depth, knowledge of a wider world and occasional
flakiness. Independent voters panicked and she became a
liability.  Mitt Romney is a cautious man and had been expected
to make a safe pick for vice-president. Yet he opted for the
quirky, brilliant, likeable, intellectual dynamo that is Paul
Ryan, whose passion for small government, fiscal conservatism
and individual responsibility rather than sta