If you are a Republican political consultant, you are almost professionally obliged to be appalled at the prospect of Rep. Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s running mate.
That the hypercautious Romney is seriously considering the House Budget Committee chairman counts as one of the biggest surprises of a campaign almost entirely lacking in them. In political terms, picking Ryan is presumed to be like hanging out with the No. 2 of an al Qaeda affiliate somewhere in the badlands of the Middle East. He’s a high-value target.
Ryan’s offense is proposing serious reform of entitlements, as part of a budget that puts federal obligations on a sustainable path. He’s already featured in one attack ad, pushing an old lady in a wheelchair off a cliff.
There’s no doubt that the heart of the Ryan budget, Medicare premium support, is a major political risk. But the GOP is wedded to it. House Republicans passed the Ryan budget — twice. Romney himself endorsed it. He is already a “little bit pregnant” on Medicare.
The Democrats’ assault over Medicare will be ferocious, not to mention lowdown and dishonest. They’ve already all but accused Romney of killing someone, and they haven’t even gotten around to Medicare. When the barrage starts, Romney won’t be able to duck and cover. He’ll have to win the argument — or at least hold his own.
This is the broader point. Romney has to carry the argument to President Obama. The state of the economy alone isn’t enough to convince people that Romney has better ideas to create jobs. Neither is his resume. Romney needs to make the case for his program, and perhaps no one is better suited to contribute to this effort than Ryan.
Ryan is an ideologue in the best sense of the term. He is motivated by ideas and knows what he believes and why. But he’s not blinkered. He is an explainer and a persuader.
Before there was a House-passed Ryan budget, there was Ryan meeting with Republican freshmen, convincing them that true fiscal restraint was impossible without addressing entitlements. When the House took up and passed his budget, there was Ryan plugging for it, as comfortable with Charlie Rose as Rush Limbaugh.
On top of Medicare, worried Republicans fear Romney becoming too identified with House Republicans. But anyone looking at Ryan for two minutes will realize he runs completely counter to the stereotype of the wild-eyed House Republican. He is invariably civil, sure-footed and good-natured.
The presidential debate would not become all about the budget, as some anxious Republicans fear. The economy remains the biggest issue, and Ryan has always been clear that his budget is best understood as a tool of growth rather than an expression of austerity.
At the end of the day, Ryan is not such an odd match for Romney. It would be characteristic for Romney to consider his VP choice as an employment decision. And characteristic for him to hire a wonky young talent. If Ryan had been into finance instead of politics back in the 1990s, you could easily see Romney picking him up for Bain Capital.
Romney is, at bottom, a data-driven technocrat. The question has always been whether he wants to bring that skill to managing the federal government — or transforming it. If he chooses Ryan, the answer is inarguably transforming it. Ryan would be Romney’s adjutant in the most consequential turnaround operation of the former Massachusetts governor’s career.
He would inject a jolt of energy into the campaign and reorient the debate around policy. The Romney campaign doesn’t have to be reckless. It does have to have a pulse. It doesn’t have to commit ideological hara-kiri. It does have to have an unmistakable substantive content.
At times, it has seemed that the Romney team has embarked on an audacious experiment to see if it’s possible to run a presidential campaign devoid of real interest. With the choice of Ryan, that would change in an instant.