Betting on Paul Ryan

No one expected that Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for the White House, could outdo or even replicate the enthusiasm, inspiration and dramaturgy that John McCain, his predecessor, instilled in the conservative base of America when he introduced Sarah Palin, then governor of Alaska, as his candidate for vice president of the United States in 2008.

Even so, selecting Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan for the Republican ticket is a wager just as big and just as surprising as Palin’s promotion. And it will assuredly have more lasting political consequences for the conservative movement and for North American politics than the meteoric rise, and almost inevitable decline, of the popular and populist character from Alaska.

Ryan, who, much like Sarah Palin, is one of the tea party’s sweethearts, is considered to be, unlike the ex-governor, a rigorous and competent student of what are currently the great themes and political dossiers of the United States Congress — specifically, necessary reforms to the so-called entitlement system (mainly Social Security and Medicare) and fiscal matters, or in other words, the deficit/tax binary. The fact that New York Times columnist and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman disagrees with that interpretation only confirms the original premise.

Right off the bat, we’re faced with two perplexities: the definitive move to the right and the attachment of the Republican candidacy to the radical faction that seized control of the conservative movement (those who refuse any sort of bipartisan compromise with regard to legislature) and the abandonment of other topics (which, consequently, also causes a void in the presentation and discussion of solutions) besides the issue of the deficit. Usually, candidates will have their eggs in many baskets, but the Republican strategy is to simply demonize every policy of Obama’s, which, according to their “primer,” have contributed to the enlargement of the State and its intervention on the economy, conditioned the activities of entrepreneur’s and businessmen, increased the deficit and overburdened the taxpayer.

Certainly, the decision made by Mitt Romney’s team was made carefully, grounded on numerous polls and political calculations. It’s impossible not to believe that the numbers show that such a “severely conservative” campaign (as Romney described himself in CPAC) will allow for the mobilization of the Republican electorate, which consists of a mixture of fiscal and social conservatives, as well as hawks and corporations.

But, by radicalizing its platform, the Republican campaign takes the great risk of offering the center to its democrat opponent, allowing President Barack Obama to adjust, both programmatically and rhetorically, in order to conquer the biggest electoral prize of all: the independent and undecided voters, which polls indicate are disappointed or frustrated with the president.

And if Independents’ attraction to Republicans is compromised, what is even to say about groups like Latinos, women and retirees, who compose three major electoral blocks? Or even the young, who came out of their traditional lethargy in 2008 to vote for Obama? In Congress, Paul Ryan voted against every proposal related to immigration reform, and against all laws related to abortion (including in cases of rape and incest). The debate regarding the effects that his budget proposal would have on programs that benefit retirees looks promising. The more these issues are explored — by the press and by the Democratic campaign — the worse off the Republicans will be… Or, maybe not.

But there are other “perplexities” that arise with the choice of Paul Ryan. One of them has to do with image management and the balance of the Republican ticket. It’s hard to think of Ryan and Romney as complementary to one another in the sense that the weaknesses of one can be compensated by the strengths of the other.

One of Mitt Romney’s shortcomings is that in all of these months of campaigning he has yet to (convincingly) demonstrate what his political plan is to the electorate. The candidate is ostensibly omitting in the explanations for his proposals and is constantly caught flip-flopping, the capital sin in American politics, which consists of changing one’s opinion.

Thus, it’s hard to understand why he chose a running mate who is seen as a potential conservative policy guru, relegating his own political productions. Typically, it’s up to the candidate for the presidency, not the vice president, to author these great plans. In this campaign’s case, the discussion is focused on Paul Ryan’s budget proposal, with everything it means in terms of cuts to services and benefits provided by the federal state. A potential problem is that, according to polls, Ryan’s ideas aren’t particularly popular.

But, at the same time, this is also one of the great pros of selecting Ryan. Although the North American press has already disqualified the effect his entrance has in the race, choosing him allows for framing the coming months of campaigning in a completely different way: The campaign will now be about a true ideological confrontation, where two opposite platforms espouse completely different roles for the country’s government. On one side are Republicans, who take their creed of “less government” in people’s lives to what is a borderline extreme. And, on the other side, are Democrats who want to maintain (and even enlarge) the federal government’s safety net.

By betting on Ryan, foreign policy has vanished from the list of campaign issues, but that doesn’t mean that the election will be any less interesting.