There was one person Romney adviser Beth Myers didn’t talk to during her vetting of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as Mitt Romney’s running mate — his mom.
“I assumed she would say good things about him,” Myers said Tuesday at an event sponsored by ABC News and Yahoo!.
{mosads}Myers was the aide Romney tasked with digging into the backgrounds of his potential No. 2s. She has been tight-lipped about the process, which has been compared to undergoing a colonoscopy, and reportedly used different staffs to vet the various contenders so only her and Romney would know who was really in consideration.
And while the process involves talking to just about anyone a contender had ever met, moms weren’t on Myers’s agenda.
She admitted it wasn’t just Ryan’s mom she left off her list.
“That was not one of the references I sought,” she noted of her search criteria for the candidates.
Ryan brought his mom, Betty Douglas, on the campaign trail with him earlier this month when he was in Florida. And when he made his first home-state appearance after being named Romney’s vice president, the Wisconsin lawmaker had tears in his eyes when he pointed out his mom in the crowd.
Douglas, who lives part-time in Florida, accompanied Ryan, his wife and their children from Wisconsin to Tampa on Tuesday morning, according to reports.