Oh dear. It’s John McCain and Sarah Palin all over again.

The crazies want the “numbers guy” who can’t get his numbers straight, but they’re stuck with the guy who could buy his way into the prime position. This is what happens when you let your party get taken over by extremists. If your top person can’t even fire up your own team, how can you win over the rest of the country?

For the first time in almost a month, Mitt Romney reunited on Tuesday with the man who many Republicans thought would charge up the presidential campaign: Representative Paul D. Ryan, the charismatic PowerPoint-wielder who can draw thousands to rallies that are really mostly giant question-and-answer sessions where they can ask “Paul,” in effect, how to save the party, and the country.

The question now is whether Mr. Ryan, Mr. Romney’s vice-presidential running mate, can save his own ticket.

Mr. Ryan often seems to get people more fired up about Mr. Romney’s message than Mr. Romney does at his own rallies. But the last few weeks have been one step forward, two steps backward for the Republican ticket, capped by the disclosure of a video showing Mr. Romney telling people at a high-dollar fund-raiser that 47 percent of Americans consider themselves “victims” and are dependent on the government.