Krugman on Perception of Paul Ryan

Professor K explains why there are people who want to take Paul Ryan seriously, even if they don't qualify as hard-core supporters.

So what the VSPs were doing was relying on a character judgment to dismiss hard evidence about the reality of Ryan’s proposals. That is, I’ve often argued, something you should never do — the truth is that we’re not that good at the character-sniffing thing (remember how Bush was a bluff, honest guy?), and in any case policy proposals should be evaluated on the merits or lack thereof. But since this is the way people work, it becomes very relevant to point out that the serious, reasonable guy is in fact in thrall to the ideas of a very unserious, unreasonable novelist.