Let me just add my name to the list. True, I'm not a Republican, though I am a Republican Hater. Listen to the WSJ. I am loving this:
"The whispering over Mitt Romney's choice of a running mate is getting louder, and along with it we are being treated to the sotto voce angst of the GOP establishment: Whatever else Mitt does, he wouldn't dare pick Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, would he?"
"Too risky, goes the Beltway chorus. His selection would make Medicare and the House budget the issue, not the economy. The 42-year-old is too young, too wonky, too, you know, serious. Beneath it all you can hear the murmurs of the ultimate Washington insult—that Mr. Ryan is too dangerous because he thinks politics is about things that matter. That dude really believes in something, and we certainly can't have that.
All of which highly recommend him for the job."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443404004577577190186374230.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Yes, that's Paul Ryan: Mr. Serious. Beloved of the most serious man in America-David Brooks.
"The case for Mr. Ryan is that he best exemplifies the nature and stakes of this election. More than any other politician, the House Budget Chairman has defined those stakes well as a generational choice about the role of government and whether America will once again become a growth economy or sink into interest-group dominated decline."
"Against the advice of every Beltway bedwetter, he has put entitlement reform at the center of the public agenda—before it becomes a crisis that requires savage cuts. And he has done so as part of a larger vision that stresses tax reform for faster growth, spending restraint to prevent a Greek-like budget fate, and a Jack Kemp-like belief in opportunity for all. He represents the GOP's new generation of reformers that includes such Governors as Louisiana's Bobby Jindal and New Jersey's Chris Christie."
"As important, Mr. Ryan can make his case in a reasonable and unthreatening way. He doesn't get mad, or at least he doesn't show it. Like Reagan, he has a basic cheerfulness and Midwestern equanimity."
Man... Listen to the WSJ! Talking bout those "beltway bedwetters!" I've noticed that this word has been used a lot in GOP circles lately. Why is this? My take is it's the frustration of losing. These guys like to see themselves as the Alpha Males-it's true the GOP is supposed to be the man's party-not the woman's party-and with all the futility of the Romney campaign the last few months they are all lashing out.
"Shut up-you a bedwetter!"
"No, fool, you the bedwetter"
I take the use of such an informal term as a measure of their frustration. I say they're all bedwetters, but that's just one man's opinion
"As for Medicare, the Democrats would make Mr. Ryan's budget a target, but then they are already doing it anyway. Mr. Romney has already endorsed a modified version of Mr. Ryan's premium-support Medicare reform, and who better to defend it than the author himself?"
Yes, but it was modified. What does he do when he is accused of supporting an unmodified version? Anyway, it's one thing for him to endorse it in a soundbite-in a modified way at that. It's quite another to embrace it to the extent that having Ryan as his Veep implies.
Romney benefits from endorsing it once-his base is reassured but many independents who the Ryan plan would scare away aren't necessarily aware of the endorsement. However, if Ryan is the Veep, Romney is doing more than just endorsing it, he's marrying it to his hip. It doesn't sound like him at all. However there is a clear groundswell:
"Personalities aside, the larger strategic point is that Mr. Romney's best chance for victory is to make this a big election over big issues. Mr. Obama and the Democrats want to make this a small election over small things—Mitt's taxes, his wealth, Bain Capital. As the last two months have shown, Mr. Romney will lose that kind of election."
"To win, Mr. Romney and the Republicans have to rise above those smaller issues and cast the choice as one about the overall direction and future of the country. Americans tell pollsters they are anxious and unhappy precisely because they instinctively know the country is troubled in ways it hasn't been since the 1970s. They know the economy is growing too slowly to raise middle-class incomes, while the government is growing too fast to be affordable."
I agree. I agree that Ryan would make this election about big issues. Where I disagree, is the idea that Democrats don't want this. To the contrary, Democrats want to run on the issues, that's what we always want. None more than this time. The supposedly "small issues" are actually a back door way of personalizing the big issues so that they are clarified for the median voter-who are not wonks as we are.
I feel Ryan would be wholly appropriate as that really is what this election is about-whether you desire the Ryan budget, and the dismantling of the New Deal. That's what's at stake. If Romney wins we will have the Ryan budget. Maybe not in it's extreme, unattenuated form. Romney already expressed a few caveats by supporting it in a "modified" form.
A President Romney would likely demand that it be modified enough for political cover. The Ryan plan likely even with Romney wouldn't be passed in it's exact original form. It would be the Ryan plan, though, with appropriate modifications.
So I agree there's a lot at stake. Where I think the WSJ is wrong, is that it's Romney who would rather not have this be an election about big issues. I can't imagine him doing this, as much as I would welcome it.
Again, if you're a liberal Democrat, you should welcome this more than anything. If you don't think Americans will vote against the Ryan plan then why are you even a liberal Democrat? I can't see Romney doing it though.
However, I do have a little more hope now. The GOP chorus for Ryan is getting louder. Even if this is not what the Romney team in Boston wants in the least they may find the clarion calls harder to resist. Especially as poll after poll seems to suggest that Romney is losing ground and Romney needs to change the subject fast from Bain Capital and why he won't release his tax returns.
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