Ever since the ?Ryan budget,? as its known, was first proposed in April 2011, there have been competing attempts by Democrats and Republicans to define what it is and what it isn?t.

Here are four questions about Mitt Romney's choice of Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) played a very amusing April Fools joke on Mitt Romney earlier this year.

Virgil Goode has been on a Western States tour for his presidential campaign. The nominee of the Constitution Party was in Wyoming a few days ago and called for deep cuts to the federal budget as a solution to the issues of over-taxation and the national debt.

Goode said he would also make reducing the deficit and balancing the federal budget his immediate priorities.

?I know that means we will have to make cuts in lot of discretionary spending,? he said. ?But I am willing to submit a balanced budget to Congress, and that is one of the first things I would do as president.?

On social issues, he said he is anti-abortion and he would defend the definition of marriage as ?between one man and one woman.?

Additionally, Virgil Goode stopped in Reno, Nevada, in order to visit activists and talk with voters there. This article has a good video of him included.

Goode was a representative of Virginia from 1997 to 2009, following several terms in the Virginia State Senate. In his time in politics, he has been a member of the Democratic party, the Independent party, the Republican party, and now the Constitution party. When asked why he has had so many party affiliations, he responded that he follows whichever party best aligns with his views.

“I think the attention paid to our party will grow,” Goode said, “because we’re right on the issues. We are on the issues that truly matter to the American citizen.”

Goode takes a strong stance on immigration reform, saying that he supports Arizona’s immigration policies, and that he would put a moratorium on legal green cards issued until the unemployment rate drops to five percent. He also supports term limits for members of Congress.

Goode said those are issues that neither major party will solve, and his supporters agreed.

“We see no answers, no real answers, just internal bickering between the Republicans and Democrats,” Independent American Party of Nevada Executive Director Janine Hansen said. “We need to go back to the foundation of the Constitution.”

Additionally, IPR has learned from various sources that Virgil Goode is now in California and will be attending the state convention of the American Independent Party of California on August 11th, hoping to obtain that party’s presidential nomination.

For conservatives, Rep. Paul Ryan was man of the week -- a week that could culminate in his selectionas Mitt Romney's running mate on Saturday morning.

It is bad enough when the Presidential Debate Commission attempts to stifle political discourse by potentially excluding Gary Johnson, but now Delaware has its own debate controversy.

A pro-Obama super PAC is out with another ad bashing Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital.

Alex Burns: "The core of the message is the same: that Romney and Bain ruined lives due to the way they handled a Kansas City steel plant."

Take our poll below and explain your choice in the comments:

Watching, reading and listening to news in America in 2012 is often about more than gathering information -- it?s also about reinforcing one?s own views.

Matthew Continetti: "Tax avoidance, felony, possible murder -- this is the picture of Mitt Romney that Barack Obama has presented to the American people. One can point out the numerous factual errors and distortions and elisions in the portrait. One can observe, as Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades did in a fundraising e-mail issued Thursday, 'This week, the Obama campaign hit a new low.' One can suggest that the race has continued to be stable and that, in the current hostile environment, to be within the margin of error is a good thing for the Republicans. And yet all of these arguments were just as applicable to the candidacy of John Kerry eight years ago as they are to Mitt Romney's candidacy today."

Interestingly, Karl Rove -- the mastermind behind defining Kerry in 2004 -- cites the piece as recommended reading.