When Reed was riding high as executive director of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition - before being taken down due to his association with Jack Abramoff, from which he's impressively recovered through the development of his powerful Faith and Freedom Coalition -- he used his youth, boyish good looks, choir boy demeanor, soft-spoken manner, affability, and self-assurance to great effect in pursuing the organization's extreme right wing social and economic agenda.

Ryan appears to possess many of those Reed-like attributes.

And when you look into the eyes of both men, you see something that you don't see in either President Barack Obama or Mitt Romney; a ruthless take no prisoners killer instinct.

There are differences: Reed was primarily known for his focus on social issues, while Ryan has made his reputation on budgetary matters. While Reed was a master of using stealth tactics, Ryan appears to be more up-front with his beliefs. He's not afraid of proposing a budget that would slash Medicare or declaring his support for privatizing Social Security. He has also openly voiced his opposition to abortion, support for state-sponsored Personhood amendments, and has voted numerous times against gay rights. Ryan scored zero on the Human Rights Campaign's (HRC) latest Congressional Scorecard, which measures an elected official's support for gay rights.

A fiscal & social issue hawk

Although primarily seen as a fiscal hawk, Ryan seems to agree with chunks of Reed's long term social agenda: "Less well known are his views on abortion, which are so strict that he opposes the procedure even in cases of rape and incest and would ban certain forms of birth control," Rob Boston, Senior Policy Analyst for Americans United, told me in an email.

Reed, called the choice of Ryan "inspired" and "outstanding."

"Paul Ryan is a rare and exceptional public servant who combines the courage of his convictions with a sharp intellect and a winsome personality. I have known him since he worked for Jack Kemp at Empower America in the early 1990s, worked with him in passing sound budgets in the House, and am proud to count him as a friend. He is a person of devout Christian faith who has a 100 percent pro-life and pro-family voting record in his 14 years in Congress. He will excite and energize social conservatives, who will play a critical role in the outcome of the elections."

By the time the weekend was over, you might have justifiably felt gob-smacked by Ryan mania. The cable news channels were mobilized, and closely followed Romney and Ryan's announcement tour. Even MSNBC bumped its prison programming to stay with the story. The Sunday news shows stayed with the story. On NBC's Meet the Press, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow squared off against the National Review's Rich Lowry in a rhetorical battle that shed more heat than light.

Of course it was big news. Nevertheless, the charged up mainstream jumped right along with GOP officials in referring to the Romney-Ryan ticket as "The Comeback Team."

You might have thought, especially after to listening to NPR's Linda Wertheimer, who by virtue of the timing of the announcement was anchoring the network's Saturday morning Ryan coverage - that Romney had just named an intellectually-bent Justin Bieber as his running mate.

And this elevation of Ryan is not surprising: In an April New York magazine article Jonathan Chait wrote that the "Ryan that has been introduced to America is a figure of cinematic rectitude -- a Jimmy Stewart character, but brainier." Chait pointed out that "ABC News actually compared Ryan with Kevin Kline's character from the 1993 movie Dave -- an endearingly naïve Everyman who accidentally finds himself president and does battle with cynical forces to scrub the federal budget of waste."

But the "naïve Everyman" should not be allowed to hide his long record of votes for conservative social issues behind a so-called Wonk King façade.

At the heart of the upcoming presidential election is this: If the Romney-Ryan ticket wins the presidency, conservatives of all stripes will have accomplished a goal that it set for itself more than seventy years ago; taking apart the New Deal, demonstrably reducing the role of the federal government, and destroying America's tattered social safety net.