What a difference a few days make. Last week Mitt Romney press
secretary Andrea Saul appeared to speak well of the Obamacare-like
Massachusetts health care law. Defending her boss against a
pro-Obama super PAC’s scurrilous charges of complicity in the death
of an uninsured woman, Saul noted that the deceased would have been
covered under Romneycare.
The conservative reaction was swift. “OMG. This might just be
the moment Mitt Romney lost the election,” Red State’s Erick
Erickson tweeted. “Wow.” Rush Limbaugh called the comment a
“potential goldmine for Obama supporters.” Ann Coulter — a
defender of Romneycare, oddly enough —
clamored for Saul to be fired. But Romney himself was invoking
his past health care reform successes on the stump in Iowa,
suggesting Saul wasn’t entirely freelancing.
By Saturday, all was (almost) forgiven. Romney’s decision to
name Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, as his
running mate doesn’t by any means guarantee he would govern as a
serious entitlement reformer if elected. But it does ensure there
will be a serious discussion of the country’s fiscal crisis. Adding
Ryan to the Republican ticket means Romney can’t avoid that debate
even if he wants to.
The uncharacteristic boldness of the selection — Romney isn’t
known for his risk-taking — raises hopes that perhaps the
Republican nominee does want to get serious about spending. Romney
was elected governor of Massachusetts in response to a budget
crisis. In his vice-presidential announcement speech, Ryan paid
tribute to Romney’s fiscal stewardship.
“As governor of Massachusetts,” Ryan said of Romney, “he worked
with Democrats and Republicans to balance budgets with no tax
increases, lower unemployment, increase income and improve people’s
lives.” Noticeably absent from this list is Romney’s health care
partnership with Ted Kennedy that later inspired elements of the
president’s Affordable Care Act.
“It’s not that dissimilar to Obamacare,” Ryan
told a TAS/Americans for Tax Reform breakfast last
spring when asked about the Romney health care law. “And you
probably know that I’m not a big fan of Obamacare.” Ryan disagreed
with the individual mandate not just from the perspective of
constitutional law but as a matter of policy.
“My uncle’s a cardiologist in Boston and I’ve talked to a lot of
health folks up there who — what’s happening now is because costs
are getting out of control, premiums are increasing in
Massachusetts and now you have a bureaucracy that is having to put
all these controls and now rationing on the system,” Ryan said on
C-SPAN in 2010. He
acknowledged earlier this year that Romneycare contained the
“seeds” of Obamacare.
Democrats will use these quotes and others to blur the
distinctions between the candidates on health care. But Ryan
actually gives Romney the opportunity to move beyond Romneycare.
There is perhaps no Republican leader in the country more
associated with promoting a freer market in medical care than Ryan.
Even the Democrats will eventually prefer to join that argument
rather than remain in the Romneycare morass.
Romney has a well-documented tendency to want to have things
both ways. That is why Eric Fehrnstrom created such a firestorm
when he made his “Etch a Sketch” comments, suggesting that Romney
could wipe the slate clean for the general election and in the
process delete the conservative positions he took in the primaries.
Romney does have the temptation of switching between the
“progressive” who could win in Massachusetts and the “severely
conservative” politician who clinched the GOP nomination.
For the duration of the campaign, at least, Romney can’t look
back. He can alter the details of Ryan’s plans for Medicare. He can
cut spending faster or slower. He can try to balance the budget
sooner or later. But Romney is going to essentially have to run on
the plan’s main principles.
Perhaps Romney has yet to receive the memo. CNN reported that
Romney insiders say the presidential nominee will not embrace fully
the Ryan plan. But the media could also have it wrong. During the
primaries, Romney was more supportive of the Ryan budget than many
rivals to his right.
Either way, Romney has committed himself to running as a strong
fiscal conservative. The Democratic attack lines are clear: the
Romney-Ryan ticket is made up of heartless budget-cutters who will
throw old ladies into the streets to succumb to exposure and
preexisting conditions. Romney is the evil outsourcing vulture
capitalist, Ryan (in the words of the political geniuses at
Esquire) “the zombie-eyed granny-starver from
Wisconsin.”
The Republican National Convention will focus on proving that
Romney is no vulture and Ryan is no zombie, granny-starving or
otherwise. But beyond humanizing the ticket, they must turn these
negatives into positives. Romney is the candidate with a proven
track record of turning around financially troubled institutions
and allowing them to grow once more. Ryan is the man with the plan
to save Social Security and Medicare. Without Romney-Ryan, the
argument must run, we are Greece.
Paul Ryan has already made conservative criticism of Romney
disappear as quickly as a Washington budget surplus. Now they must
engage swing voters. Even after becoming “severely conservative,”
Romney has often behaved like a liberal in the worst sense: a man
who won’t take his own side in an argument.
That’s not really an option for a successful campaign. Running
with Ryan simply underscores the fact. The Etch a Sketch is broken.
It’s time to paint a new picture.
