A Treat for the Tea Party

In choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney is looking to solidify support from the right wing of his party. That was once Sarah Palin’s role. But Obama has more to fear from Ryan than he did from Palin.

Risky, surprising and courageous describes Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan for vice president. But the choice is also an act of desperation because had Romney’s prospects in November looked better — he’s clearly lagging in the polls — he would have drawn a safer card.

In choosing Ryan, however, he’s trying the same strategy Sen. John McCain tried four years earlier with his choice of Sarah Palin as running mate: Republicans are choosing a candidate intended to change the dynamics of the election campaign. Like Palin, then-governor of Alaska, the 42-year-old Ryan is a politician who could be problematic. Palin is both adored and scorned to this very day and it’s only slightly different with Ryan. He’s seen as a right-wing conservative fiscal ideologue by some and as a courageous warrior against the increasing national debt. There’s scarcely room between those positions for political middle ground.

The political calculus for Romney is readily apparent. He, himself, is a procrastinator, vacillator and notorious opportunist who is accused by many in the conservative wing of his party of being too liberal. Ever since he, as governor of Massachusetts, put in place a healthcare reform plan that became the basis for Obama’s own plan, Romney suffers from a loss of credibility in the Republican base.

In that regard, Romney’s repeated promises to repeal Obama’s healthcare plan as soon as he’s elected have changed very little. Tea-party-backed Ryan wants to balance the budget and it’s hardly imaginable that he would waste any political capital by allowing his name to be attached to any toxic compromises.

With his selection, Romney has simultaneously drawn a clear political dividing line between himself and Obama. Ryan, head of the House Budget Committee, has a history of repeatedly proposing radical deficit reduction plans. The centerpiece of these has always been the gradual abolition of Medicare — the healthcare program all American senior citizens can use — which Republicans see as the principal cause of the U.S. budget deficit.

Medicare is slated by Republicans to be replaced by a voucher system which would have caps on the dollar values of services. Simultaneously, Ryan proposes drastic tax cuts, whether in income, capital gains or corporate taxes.

The so-called “Ryan Plan” touched off a massive public debate. Economic Nobel laureate Paul Krugman accused the Republicans of wanting to place the debt burden on the backs of the poor while protecting the wealthy.

Obama used Ryan’s blueprint as proof that conservatives were still married to the “trickle down theory” of economics that holds that reducing taxes on the wealthy would eventually benefit the lower classes. Even Newt Gingrich, himself a presidential candidate for several months, criticized Ryan’s intentions as “right-wing social engineering.”

The tea party is naturally enthusiastic about Ryan who is disarmingly young and charismatic, qualities missing in the usually wooden Romney who often comes off as uninspired, stuffy and even occasionally tactless when interacting with the public. Ryan is expected to inject some freshness into the campaign team. That’s the greatest danger Ryan poses to Obama’s reelection — he could break Obama’s monopoly on youthful vigor. But to do that, he has to emancipate himself from Romney. Right now they come off more like a father and son team.

Romney has to hope that in choosing Ryan, those Republicans who have doubted him up to now turn out at the polls on Nov. 6. He also has to assume that the new head of the tea party Congressional faction will not waver ideologically.

For that bargain, Romney has had to abandon a portion of the political middle. Those Americans who are dissatisfied with Obama and saw a possible alternative in the indecisive Romney may be frightened by the prospect of Ryan. Ryan envisions a society in which government’s role is reduced to little more than that of an above-average night watchman. Obama and the Democrats, in contrast, stand for a stronger government dedicated to providing social justice.

Romney’s decision accomplishes at least one thing: Voters now have a clearly defined choice.