Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan has certainly livened things up. And
for a while on Saturday, I agreed with the commentators saying it’s a good
choice: good for the country. Their reasoning: now we can have a national
debate over substance.
But after spending much of yesterday reading about Ryan and thinking about
what his selection may mean, I’m not so sure. I’ll have more about this in my
weekly Urban Journal column, which I’ll post on Tuesday night, but at the
moment, I’m worried – about what the selection says about Mitt Romney and what
it says about the future of the Republican Party.
During a casual discussion about Ryan in our newsroom earlier this morning,
news editor Chris Fien had an interesting – and important – question: Does this
mean the Romney campaign has given up on the center?
That leads to another question: If so, can Romney win?
And then another question: Is there much center left among American voters?
Are there enough centrist voters that the Ryan choice will affect the outcome
of the election?
We’ll find out in November.
This article appears in Aug 8-14, 2012.
