Romney Selects Sarah Palin as His Running Mate!

Well, not exactly.

Paul Ryan is not Palinesque in being both uninterested in and uninformed about public policy. He is not like Palin in vanity or rhetorical viciousness.

He is, however, very much like Palin in that a GOP presidential nominee--concerned that his moderate past may undermine support from the conservative base--has swung for the fences by selecting a running mate that is both high risk and high reward. Ryan is, like Palin before him, in Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's phrase, a "Game Changer."

Was it a wise choice? That depends on how you view the current state of the race. If you believe that Romney is seriously behind and needed something to kick start his campaign, then Ryan might be a good choice. If you are losing anyway, a risky choice can only help. This was clearly Romney's own view. He abandoned his earlier pledge to select a "boring white guy" like Tim Pawlenty or Rob Portman. Ryan is a white guy to be sure, but he is certainly not boring. Why the change? We can only guess, but the Obama campaign's relentless efforts at portraying Romney as a richy rich plutocrat, out of touch with ordinary folks was clearly working. The culminating event may have been the conservative freakout over a Romney aid's audacious suggestion that the electorate should consider Romney's own record as governor of Massachusetts.

So, Ryan will no doubt shore up the conservative base, and I suppose that it is possible that the selection may put Wisconsin into play, which had been looking increasingly out of Romney's reach. Finally, Ryan is an attractive candidate in that he is personable and serious-sounding. He possesses serious political skills. That's the up side. What's the down side? Um, where to start?

• Ryan is the author and promoter of a plan to fundamentally restructure Medicare, transforming it from guaranteed health care for the elderly into a voucher plan in which retirees will be given a fixed amount of cash with which to purchase health insurance on the open market. It polls terribly. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, won a traditionally GOP seat in upper state New York running against the Ryan Medicare plan. As David Frum pointed out today, "Romney has transformed a campaign about jobs and growth into a campaign about entitlements and Medicare."
• Ryan reinforces the very aspect of Romney's positions that Obama has been savaging. Obama has been saying that Romney wants to raise taxes and cut benefits for the middle class to fund an huge tax cut for the very wealthy. Ryan is on record supporting such a plan, the only difference being it is even more radical in this direction. Whereas Romney wants to maintain the preferential tax treatment provided to stock dividends and capital gains contained in the Bush 2003 tax cut (traditional sources of income for the very wealthy), Ryan wants to eliminate taxes on dividends, capital gains, and inherited wealth entirely. However, serious the Buffett secretary problem is now, Ryan's plan would make it immeasurably worse.
• Unlike Ohio's Rob Portman, Virginia's Bob McDonnell, or Florida's Mark Rubio, any of whom could almost certainly put a key battleground state within reach, Ryan only marginally improves Romney's chances in Wisconsin. Furthermore, Ryan is a leading member of Congress, one of the least liked institutions in the country. 
• Unlike Chris Christie, who might have conceivably helped Romney with independents, an area where recent polling look increasingly bad for Romney, Ryan will likely make that problem even worse.

For political junkies the Ryan choice makes the race much more interesting. Ryan has very strong views and is the most ideologically extreme candidate for Vice-President since at least 1900 and is roughly as conservative as Michele Bachmann. I am particularly interested in seeing whether the media exposure resulting from this choice will transform Ryan in the public's mind from a wonky deficit hawk into a Randian class warrior, a portrait that is much more accurate, as I have claimed previously here and here. We will never know whether the choice improves Romney's chances of winning the White House. Personally, I doubt it, but it will be fun to watch.