As we settle in to the first full week of press coverage of the Ryan VP decision, one of the stories that has emerged is that Republican political professionals are upset about the choice of Paul Ryan for VP. As a Republican political professional, my response to my colleagues is pretty simple: grow a pair and stop whining.
Anybody who has been paying attention could tell you what the inevitable Democratic attacks and messaging on Ryan was going to be – make Romney own Ryan’s medicare plans and the Ryan budget. Romney’s team is obviously prepared for those arguments because the talking points in response are so elementary they practically write themselves: Ryan is not running for President. He’s running for Vice President. The Ryan budget is not the Romney budget, and the Ryan medicare plan is not the Romney medicare plan. Romney has his own plans, and they don’t include everything the House Republicans have done. Then you pivot back to the economy and jobs.
So why are so many Republican political professionals worried? Politico wrote a piece Tuesday, citing interviews with three dozen Republican professionals claiming that inside the beltway the Ryan choice has been roundly panned. None of these Republicans were willing to go on record, of course, although Mr. No-Labels himself, Mark McKinnon said this “I think it’s a very bold choice. And an exciting and interesting pick. It’s going to elevate the campaign into a debate over big ideas. It means Romney-Ryan can run on principles and provide some real direction and vision for the Republican Party. And probably lose. Maybe big.”
Oh ye of little faith.
Yes, the Ryan choice was a risky choice, but in the current field of potential Vice Presidential candidates, there were no “safe” choices. Every single candidate had upsides and downsides, most of which we’ve discussed ad nauseum in the run up to the selection. Ryan’s upsides have been clear – he is star in Republican circles, someone who has the support of both establishment Republicans and the Tea Party. He’s a policy guy, which is a welcome contrast to Sarah Palin’s candidacy in 2008. He’s been offering concrete ideas – even if those ideas aren’t popular – about how to get us out of the current economic mess, and he’s been willing to speak truth to power, even taking on President Obama directly and to his face in the Obamacare meetings in 2010.
Ryan’s downsides were also apparent, but none of them were insurmountable, nor were they attacks that are some how amplified by having Ryan on the ticket. We were already getting attacked for the Ryan budget. We were already getting attacked on Medicare. This didn’t create new lines of attack that didn’t already exist.
The only real problem that the Ryan selection creates is simply one of messaging and framing – which was always going to be the case with any candidate for the Vice Presidency. The Obama team was sitting on reams of opposition research on everybody who was a potential running mate – with Portman, they’d have hit him on his ties to the Bush White House, having been OMB director and they’d have doubled down on their “these guys got us into this mess” line. With Governor McDonnell, they’d have amped up the war on women line of attack and trotted out the thesis to reinforce it to the rest of America who isn’t as tired of it as we are in Virginia. If it was Rubio, they’d have hit him with all the ethics charges and said he’s not ready to be President, hitting us with our own attacks on Obama in 2008. Every single short list name came with a pre-packaged set of attacks that would have been launched this week.
As long as Romney continues to do what he’s doing – fighting back hard against the President’s increasingly shrill and low-brow campaign – there is nothing to worry about with Ryan on the ticket. The good outweighs the potential bad. Yes, it is still a risk, but Romney has never been the frontrunner in this campaign so far, so a little calculated risk was needed to gather some momentum going into the convention.
Yes, Romney could have played it safer, but there really was no other candidate out there that would have been both a responsible choice and unite the party behind the ticket like Ryan did. I have heard from dozens of friends and relatives who were skeptical about a Romney candidacy say they’re definitely voting for the ticket this year now that Ryan has joined.
I’ve been quick to defend my inside-the-beltway colleagues in the past from what I consider unfair criticism, but this time I think the criticism is fair. The pundits need to stop worrying and start working.
