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Romney's running mate: Is Paul Ryan just Mitt squared?



By JONATHAN MARTIN | 8/11/12 3:32 PM EDT

NORFOLK, Va. – As Mitt Romney introduced his running mate here this morning, it was easy to see why the only person in the campaign who originally wanted the 42-year-old budget wonk was the 65-year-old numbers nerd on top of the ticket.

For all the talk about how Romney executed a daring stroke by tapping Paul Ryan — author of a controversial entitlement-reform plan — it’s clear that Ryan resides safely in the comfort zone of a man who’s always been more at ease with Power Points than people.

(PHOTOS: Romney and Ryan, BFFs)
http://www.politico.com/gallery/2012/08/romney-and-ryan-bffs/000351-004576.html?hp=l2

Ryan’s not exactly Mitt’s mini-me – the think tanker-cum-congressman is more of a conservative true believer than the get-it-done former CEO — but he’s somebody who fits nicely right in the GOP nominee’s “wheelhouse,” to borrow a favorite Romneyism.

So much so, that the choice raises the question of what Ryan brings to a ticket that already has one Mitt Romney on it — or put more simply, which of Romney’s perceived shortcomings in flash, style or ability to connect with voters does Paul cure? It would be easy to conclude, not many.

(PHOTOS: Ryan through the years)
http://www.politico.com/gallery/2012/08/paul-ryan-through-the-years/000348-004537.html?hp=f3

Ryan’s not a scintillating speaker – his debut address will be neither little noted nor long remembered – and he has none of Joe Biden’s skill at tactile politics. He’s an ideas man who likes nothing more than to hold forth on out-year projections that you’ll see on this next slide here. There were bursts of applause for the House Budget Chairman as he spoke, but he didn’t deliver any fire and brimstone and probably won’t for the next 90 days — even though that’s practically in the job description of running mate.

That’s not his style. That might be a problem, but it does explain why he and Romney have hit it off.

Romney didn’t pick the inspiring Marco Rubio to compensate for a lack of oratorical chops, or to woo Hispanic voters. Nor did he tap the salt-of-the-earth Tim Pawlenty to inject a bit of Sam’s Club into the country club. Romney sought a youthful double, not a balancing complement.

(PHOTOS: Paul Ryan hearts charts)
http://www.politico.com/gallery/2012/08/paul-ryan-the-smarty-pants/000350-004567.html?hp=r16

Indeed, listening to an effusive Romney share Ryan’s story on a brilliant Tidewater morning, it was easy to recall the gleam in John McCain’s eye four years ago as he looked on at Sarah Palin, a fellow boat-rocker who also delighted in taking on entrenched interests. Or, further back, the summer day in 1992 when Bill Clinton discarded years of precedent about regional and ideological balance and summoned Al Gore – a fellow Southern, 40-something moderate — to Little Rock, to make a generational case to voters.

In Romney’s telling, Ryan looks a lot like the person Romney hopes voters see when they take the measure of the man on the top of the ticket: A son of the common-sense Midwest, a devout father and husband anchored by faith and family in his private life and a public figure marked by seriousness, civility and a gentleman’s sense of fair play.

“In a city that is far too often characterized by pettiness and personal attacks, Paul Ryan is a shining exception,” Romney boasted. “He does not demonize his opponents. He understands that honorable people can have honest differences. And he appeals to the better angels of our nature. There are a lot of people in the other party who might disagree with Paul Ryan; I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t respect his character and judgment.”

Yes, Romney praised Ryan for emerging as the “intellectual leader” of the GOP, but that didn’t get the same emphasis as what the nominee portrayed as Ryan’s dedication to a nearly bygone Marquis of Queensberry-style code.

The man who once pleaded with a debate moderator for intervention – “Anderson!” – when his rivals broke the agreed-upon rules has found his match.

Just as telling was what Romney noted about a politician defined in the eyes of most political observers almost entirely by his push for a full-scale revamping of traditional New Deal and Great Society programs, something bitterly opposed by Democrats.

“Paul also combines firm principles with a practical concern for getting things done,” Romney noted. “He has never been content to simply curse the darkness; he would rather light candles. And throughout his legislative career he’s shown the ability to work with members of both parties to find common ground on some of the hardest issues confronting the American people.”

Now, this rhetoric is in no small part aimed at swing voters who’ve made clear their disgust with the small-bore spats that have sent congressional approval ratings plummeting to historic lows.

But it also represents a sort of candidate’s revenge. Yes, the conservative smart-set in New York and Washington pushed for Ryan because he’s a reformer determined to actually implement sweeping policy changes the thinkers have only spilled onto white papers. But Romney wanted it known what he, Mitt, saw in the young congressman. Romney has suppressed it intermittently to mollify the right during two presidential runs, but he’s never discarded entirely what he did across party lines in Massachusetts to extend healthcare coverage.

And if conservatives thought, choosing Ryan would mean a double-armed embrace of the congressman’s “Roadmap” budget blueprint, well, they certainly didn’t get it Saturday – in public or in private.

In his speech, Romney spoke of entitlements only in general terms.

“Unlike the current president who has cut Medicare funding by $700 billion, we will preserve and protect Medicare and Social Security,” said the Republican standard bearer. “Under the current president, healthcare has only become more expensive. We will reform healthcare so that more Americans have access to affordable healthcare, and we will get that started by repealing and replacing Obamacare.”

And in talking points the campaign circulated as Romney and Ryan stood on stage in Norfolk, it was even clearer that Boston intends to play it safe on Medicare.

“Gov. Romney applauds Paul Ryan for going in the right direction with his budget, and as president he will be putting together his own plan for cutting the deficit and putting the budget on a path to balance,” read the first “answer” under a Q-and-A section that began with this query: “Does this mean Mitt Romney is adopting the Paul Ryan plan?”

Of course, President Obama’s campaign is hardly going to let Romney’s campaign alone as they offer such tightrope-walking generalities.

“Wow, Mittsters break land speed record trying to distance from radical Ryan budget,” Obama strategist David Axelrod Tweeted with a link to ABC’s report on the Romney talking points. “Problem: it looks just like Mitt’s!”

The similarities between the two men, and the way Romney implicitly spoke of them here, get at how the Republican nominee hopes his campaign and eventual presidency will be perceived: solutions-oriented, waged on ideas and fought cleanly. No red meat here, either: both men check the box on the cultural issues that drive key parts of their party, but it’s not what animates them.

But it’s the differences that do exist between the two that illustrate how his campaign is struggling now and why Romney got his way and selected a running mate he and his aides know represents a risk.

The selection of Ryan is an effective admission that the strategy of running a referendum on President Obama’s failed economy with a businessman outsider is itself a failure. Tapping Ryan, as Romney acknowledged here, means setting up a choice election based on starkly different philosophies – not one-note tunes synced only to the latest BLS numbers. And choosing a politics-and-government lifer like Ryan means forfeiting much of the Washington-bashing Romney has embraced.

Now, instead, Romney is bought in. Try as his talking points might, he’s all but linked to the policy details he’s attempted to keep some space of plausible deniability from. And he’s taken up the sword of his party’s unpopular congressional wing.

In picking Ryan, Romney – a man whose professional life has been marked by risk-mitigation and personal life by prudence – has unexpectedly shown that there’s one more trait the two share: a political boldness that could prove legacy-shaping or invite their demise.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/79624.html