Handicapping the VP race based upon Wikipedia edits

The concept of predicting a VP candidate based upon the volatility of their Wikipedia biographies, as CNN explains, is not new.

In the past, Wikipedia activity has spiked for vice presidential picks the day before an official announcement was made. In 2008, hours before Republican candidate John McCain announced his vice presidential choice, Sarah Palin's Wikipedia page was getting a heavy edit. According to The Washington Post, the then-Alaska governor's page was changed 68 times the day before the announcement. In the 24 hours leading up to Obama's running mate announcement, Joe Biden's page was edited 40 times.

So I decided to take an updated look, heading into the weekend, at activity for "the Big Four" ostensible VP contenders.

Wikipedia modifications to VP contender biographies over the last week:

• Rob Portman: 159 changes.
• Paul Ryan 96 changes
• Marco Rubio 83 changes
• Tim Pawlenty 34 changes

Wikipedia modifications to VP contender biographies over the last day:

• Paul Ryan 38 changes
• Rob Portman: 33 changes.
• Marco Rubio 24 changes
• Tim Pawlenty 11 changes

If recency is any indicator, it looks like Paul Ryan is coming on strong.

I can't imagine Rob Portman -- a pasty, boring white guy, affiliated with the Bush administration and who is largely unknown outside Washington -- as the VP candidate. Sorry, I just can't.

As for Tim Pawlenty: based on the stats, he looks like a non-entity when it comes to VP contender status. Which is as it should be. The guy dropped out of the GOP primary in what seemed to be about four days.

Marco Rubio or Paul Ryan would both make outstanding choices. Charisma. Principles. Brains. All of the things, in other words, lacking in Joe Biden.

Geraghty: If Reid, Pelosi or Biden were struck by genuine neurological dementia, how would we be able to tell?

At the risk of ripping off borrowing too much of Jim Geraghty's latest at National Review, I can only respond by asking:

If, Jim? If? If???

Whomever Mitt Romney picks as his running mate, I hope that person understands the need to come out of the gate as a fighter... right now, millions of Republicans and independents feel like the world has gone crazy, and no one seems intent upon setting it right.

• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is basically making things up, claiming that “a number of people” have told him about felony-level tax evasion by Mitt Romney. (Technically, zero is a number.)

• House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi declares, “it is a fact” in response to Reid’s charges and his unnamed sources, and labeling the opposition party, “the E. Coli club.”

• A new ad from President Obama’s SuperPAC declares, “Mitt Romney killed my wife.” (The man’s wife died seven years after Romney left Bain Capital.)

• The Obama “Truth Team” distributes a charge that Romney’s ad hitting Obama for changing the work requirements for welfare “has racial overtones.”

...If, God forbid, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, or Joe Biden were to be struck by genuine neurological dementia, how would we be able to tell?

...Reid, Pelosi, the president, his campaign, and his allies continue to throw out weapons-grade nonsense into the media environment with absolutely no consequence whatsoever.

...There was a time, not long ago, when if the Senate Majority Leader was going to accuse his opponents of a crime, he had to at least point to some evidence, lest he be derided as a McCarthyite, a demagogue, a liar and a toxic influence to public discourse. There was a time when presidential campaigns did not casually accuse their opponent of murder. There was a time when not every criticism of an opponent’s policy triggered a knee-jerk accusation of “racism!”

No one wonders why our political class is so disappointing. It’s because no sane person would want to step into the BS maelstrom that is modern politics... perhaps Romney thinks he can embody this by taking the high road. Perhaps he is correct... But somebody has to call out this nonsense for what it is – and I think many, many Republicans are waiting, with growing impatience, for someone to do that.

We need a conservative fighter, not a squish (see: Pawlenty, Portman) or a centrist with questionable values (see: Christie).

Which is why either Marco Rubio or Allen West must be named Mitt Romney's running mate.

Rubio obliterates Obama's budget proposals: POTUS offers another 'blank piece of paper' on entitlement reform

A fitting description for President Mails-It-In's latest prescription for destroying the country's finances. And we're at, what, day 1019 without a Democrat budget? Any comment on that, President McDowngrade?

From the WSJ:

President Barack Obama’s budget proposal Monday will offer several measures to trim the federal deficit in the next 10 years. But it would leave largely unchanged the biggest drivers of future government spending: the Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs that are expanding rapidly as the baby boom turns into a senior boom.

Senator Marco Rubio saw this coming.

As he said yesterday in his CPAC speech:

So, where is the President’s plan to save Medicare? Let me show it to you. Here it is. [Holds up blank sheet of paper.] He doesn’t have one. It is a blank piece of paper. This is his plan when it comes to Medicare. His plan is wait for a Republican like Paul Ryan to offer a plan and then attack him. He hasn’t been in office three or four weeks. He’s been in office a little bit over three years. Two of those years, his party controlled both houses of Congress. And he’s dealt with none of these issues I’ve just outlined.

And it now looks like President Obama will end his term with a whole stack of blank sheets of paper... And why hasn’t Obama outlined some long-term plan since a coming debt deluge will make a “built to last” economy impossible to achieve otherwise?

Pethokoukis is more forgiving than I am. He concludes that President Obama will simply propose more tax increases on the middle class (because the rich simply can't be taxed enough to make up for this monstrous shortfall).

Obama won’t tell you that he wants to raise taxes on all Americans. I just did.

I disagree.

President Obama, in my estimation, is trying to "fundamentally transform" this country (his words) into some Statist Utopia. And to do so, it will require a complete economic collapse. Which is precisely where we're headed if we don't remove this disaster from office in November.

Marco Rubio's awesome letter to Barack Obama: America deserves honest leaders, i.e., not you

My gosh, this Marco Rubio is one impressive statesman.

We only need about 66 more senators like him and we'll be well on our way to saving this republic.