Widely suspected of believing in nothing, Mitt Romney’s choice of a True Believer as his running mate plays well as public theater. As a TV performer, Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan is as winsome as Sarah Palin, and far better at faking sincerity.

Although women are generally smarter about this kind of thing than men, Ryan’s puppy-dog eyes and altar boy demeanor make him a formidable campaigner. Had he not gone into politics, he’d have made a terrific Irish-Catholic funeral director. Not for nothing did his high school classmates in Janesville, Wis., elect him class president and, more tellingly, “Biggest Brown-Noser.”