By picking Ryan, Romney shakes up the race

What happened

Mitt Romney upended the presidential race this week by picking hard-line fiscal conservative Paul Ryan as his running mate, turning the November election into a choice between starkly contrasting ideologies on spending, taxes, and the role of government. Ryan, a Catholic congressman from Wisconsin, is best known as the author of a budget blueprint for the Republican-led House of Representatives that would slash private and corporate taxes, make deep cuts in programs for the poor, and, beginning in 10 years, try to rein in Medicare costs by giving seniors vouchers to buy private health insurance. (See page 4). Romney hailed Ryan as an “intellectual leader of the Republican Party,” and praised his ability to “work with members of both parties to find common ground.” Ryan said his deep familiarity with Capitol Hill and federal budgets would complement Romney’s business credentials, and help Republicans “turn around” the economy. “We won’t duck the tough issues,” he said. “We will lead.”

Democrats wasted little time in attacking Ryan as a right-wing extremist. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said Ryan’s proposals represented “Bush trickle-down economics on steroids.” A Gallup poll found that 42 percent rated Ryan’s selection as “fair” or “poor,” while 39 percent called it “excellent” or “good.” That was the least positive reception for a vice-presidential pick since Dan Quayle in 1988.

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What the editorials said

Paul Ryan is a “welcome addition to the 2012 race,” said The Washington Post. The Wisconsin congressman is a “one-man idea factory” whose serious, if flawed, proposals on taxes and entitlements will turn what has been a “dismally substance-free campaign” into a “serious clash of ideas.”

Romney’s decision says good things about his candidacy, said NationalReview.com. By choosing a “full-spectrum conservative” as a running mate, he has committed himself to a bold, conservative agenda. That will mean fierce fights on Medicare, welfare reform, and tax policy. But “these are debates worth winning, and they can be won.”

What the columnists said

Romney had much safer choices, said Nate Silver in NYTimes.com, so it’s fair to assume he felt he was losing, and needed “to shake up the race.” Ryan will energize the conservative base, but his impact on centrist swing voters is questionable at best. Ryan is the “flesh-and-blood embodiment” of the most unpopular Congress in history, and he’s far to the right of most independents. Ryan, in fact, represents “an even bigger political gamble than the selection of Sarah Palin four years ago,” said Jay Bookman in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Democrats will hang his proposal to privatize Medicare around the Romney ticket’s neck like a huge albatross. In not-for-attribution interviews, Republican political strategists quickly expressed deep doubt, even panic, about the choice, saying Ryan could cost Republicans not only any chance at the White House, but seats in the House and Senate as well. “It could put the Senate out of reach,” one GOP strategist told The Hill. “This is not good.”

Don’t be so sure, said Jim Tankersley in NationalJournal.com. Ryan neutralizes Obama’s class-war argument by reframing the election as a choice between Republicans who want to encourage individual responsibility and cut taxes, and a president “who wants to funnel hard-earned middle-class tax dollars to the poor.” Ryan also can convince Americans that a vote for Obama is a vote for economic disaster, said Fred Barnes in WeeklyStandard.com. He has the personal charisma and policy chops to make the impending deficit crisis “real in voters’ minds.”

Say this about Paul Ryan, said Jacob Weisberg in Slate.com.He’s “a conviction politician” who “understands the hard choices ahead” and would end the Republican practice of “calling for less government in theory while voting for more in practice.” His proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher system “puts the onus on Democrats to say how else they would restrain a program that is growing to consume the entire federal budget.’’ But he won’t be rewarded for his boldness in Florida, a “must-win state for Romney,” or in other swing states with lots of seniors. Ryan’s selection “represents a big step in the direction of conservative honesty—and probably, for that reason, toward Republican defeat.”