By Arthur I. Cyr
"We want to make sure that we preserve and protect Medicare," Mitt Romney declared last week in Florida, a crucial state with numerous senior citizens.
This followed the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's announcement Saturday that Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin would be his running mate. The choice immediately generated headlines and heat.
Republicans applaud Ryan ― representing the state's southeastern district, where this columnist works ― as a committed conservative who is appealing in red states, able to mobilize the party base and perhaps even put Wisconsin in play. President Barack Obama took the state by a 14-point margin in 2008.
Democrats applaud the choice as an opportunity to highlight Republican emphasis on cutting spending, especially in health care, a topic of special concern to older voters.
Republicans rejoin the plan is essential to avoid national bankruptcy, rendering us in a few short decades utterly unable to help the poor, the sick or anyone else. The doorway to disaster is yawning open thanks to out-of-control Obama spending, never mind those big-deficit George W. Bush years.
Ultimately the voters in November will determine which presidential ticket is more persuasive. Meanwhile, Ryan's selection deserves applause from everyone interested in serious discussion of public policy.
Ryan is a likeable leader in part because of his personable down-home style, but also because he avoids smear tactics while demonstrating impressive policy knowledge. Democrats denounce his detailed, orderly plan for the federal budget, but they have yet to provide a comparable alternative.
Obama has in fact avoided budgetary leadership. Ryan and the Republicans, in consequence, effectively are defining major policy concerns of the presidential contest, if not the outcome.
Unfortunately for Republicans, earlier statements about the Obama administration's healthcare reforms hurt their credibility. In 2010, Sarah Palin relentlessly crisscrossed the country, raising the specter of "Democrat death panels that would terminate the elderly."
Palin's siren song had limited impact on congressional races, but the bizarre memory haunts GOP efforts to attract independent voters. In effect, this year protecting Grandma has become a Democratic theme song.
But Ryan also represents the reality that conservatives have accepted an active role for government in health care, along with other policies addressing economic and social security. The argument is about means, not ends. Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, earlier conservative icon and Republican presidential nominee in 1964, opposed such policies. So did Ronald Reagan during the Goldwater era, but not later.
Beyond this campaign, Romney's selection of Ryan indicates the diminished importance of party conventions, and growth in importance of the vice presidency. By tradition, the vice presidential running mate is announced at the party convention. The second banana often emerged from a brokered backroom deal.
However, the 1952 Republican convention was the last to determine the nominee. Sen. Robert Taft arrived at the Chicago gathering leading popular Gen. Dwight Eisenhower in delegates, but lost. Complex private deals led to the vice presidential nod going to a 39-year-old senator named Richard Nixon, who greatly expanded his influence.
In 1976, former Gov. Ronald Reagan boldly challenged incumbent President Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination. His dramatic moves included naming moderate Pennsylvania Sen. Richard Schweiker as running mate in advance of the convention. Ford held on to the nomination, but just barely.
Today, we have much more direct democracy, with voters picking presidential nominees in party primaries, without the filters ― and protections ― of older-style politics.
Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wis., and author of "After the Cold War." Email acyr@carthage.edu.