Republican presidential candidate, former
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) and U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) wave
as Ryan is announced as his vice presidential running mate in front of
the USS Wisconsin August 11, 2012 in Norfolk, Virginia. (Image credit:
Getty Images via @daylife)\
When
Bill Clinton’s
political consultant, James Carville, posted the big issue for the 1992
presidential campaign on a sign at headquarters—“The Economy Stupid”—he
turned out to be foreshadowing the 2012 campaign as well. But with Mitt
Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate,
that slogan takes a subtle turn. The 2012 campaign is still about the
economy, but the variation on that theme is now more specifically the
role of
government in the economy.
Paul Ryan, as Chair of the House Budget Committee and the guy with
serious and specific ideas, brings to the fore the big question for
Campaign 2012: Do Americans want the Romney-Ryan less government formula
of tax cuts for economic growth, along with spending and entitlement
cuts and
debt reduction?
Or do they prefer the Obama-Biden approach of letting tax cuts expire,
and promoting more government spending and infrastructure programs to
spur economic growth?
With Paul Ryan’s selection, Campaign 2012 has become less
about the current recession, instead featuring more prominently the
classic conservative-liberal debate of the past 50 years: big government
versus market-based approaches to economic stability and growth. In his
first appearance as a vice presidential candidate, Ryan quickly
emphasized that “we have the largest deficits and the biggest federal
government since World War II.” At every campaign stop, he reminds
voters that our rights as Americans “come from nature and God, not
government.”
