Mitt Romney's High-Risk Winning Formula

For weeks, Mitt Romney has paddled with difficulty against harsh winds.

The Republican candidate for the American presidential election was readily suspected by his grassroots supporters of being too dull to hope to battle Barack Obama in November, and accused by his Democratic adversaries of being too vague to purport to take over America’s destiny.

In choosing Paul Ryan as running mate, he made a sacred bet — because if there is really a thing for which one cannot reproach a young (42-year-old) Wisconsin congressman, it is being dull or vague.

Very much to the contrary. Apostle of a radical neoliberalism, destroyer of handouts and of the Rooseveltian Welfare State, Mr. Ryan has made the fiscal revolution the decisive weapon for reducing the gigantic public debt of the United States and avoiding its mortgaging of American power any longer.

To do this, he proposes a horse pill: Reduce public expenditures by 6 trillion dollars over 10 years and, at the same time, tax revenues by $4 trillion, by lowering taxes on a huge scale, all without reducing military expenditures. When it passes, health care coverage and pensions will be totally privatized, including for the poorest, and federal social aid pretty much abolished. Next to which, retrospectively, a Ronald Reagan would appear like a dangerous leftist. Even in the Republican camp, many believe that the country would not withstand such a purge.

A militant Catholic, the representative from Wisconsin is no less radical in the values arena. He is an advocate not only of banning abortion, but of suppressing public financing for family planning, and an energetic defender of the freedom to bear arms…

In choosing this monk-soldier as his running mate, Mitt Romney hopes to have resolved the dilemma with which he is confronted: unifying his camp, while at the same time leading traditional Republicans (from moderate conservatives to classic Reaganites) and the far right, which increasingly dictates the Republican political agenda. In 2008, John McCain made — without success — the same bet in choosing Sarah Palin, muse of the working class and populist right, as his running mate. With a less outlandish and more robust Ryan, the Republican candidate attempts a winning formula.

But he takes a double risk. On one hand, that of alienating himself from “independent voters,” on whom depend much of the ballot’s fate, as well as the groups (notably retirees and women) who would be affected in full force by the eventual implementation of “Plan Ryan.” On the other hand, of giving Barack Obama’s team a formidable angle of attack: His strategist, David Axelrod, wasted no time in calling Mr. Ryan a “right-wing ideologue” and “quite extreme” — thus immediately forcing Romney to distance himself from his running mate’s economic plan. The American campaign threatened to be dull. But it now looks tough.