I know many are saying Ryan was forced upon Romney, but I have a somewhat different take. Watching Romney with Ryan during the roll-out (and in earlier appearances) it seemed to me that Romney and Ryan connected.
And then it struck me: Romney picked his "Mini-Me" -- the Republican's golden boy du jour.
Maybe he reminded Romney of his younger self, when everything he touched turned to gold and people bowed deferentially before him, much as the right bows to Ryan's allegedly superior intellect (without the bitter edge Newt displays). I think Romney was ready to embrace Ryan -- not just to appease the right, but because he saw him as the only possible game changer with any chance of helping him survive the carnage his campaign had become. (Whether it is Ryan or Romney himself who is actually the "mini-me" is a subject for another diary.)
Watching the newly energized Romney during the VP roll out I saw a Romney who felt buoyed by his new "wing-man." I could almost see the Romney thought bubbles "gosh, he's just the right height (not too tall) and just the right age (could be one of my boys) and gosh darned it just so disarmingly harmless looking no one would believe he's a shark like me!"
Understandably, Democrats celebrated the VP pick because it hung the Ryan budget around Mitt's neck. But it's not time for us to do a happy dance yet. If we know anything, it's that the Republicans have in the past outplayed the Democrats in FRAMING THE ISSUES. If we want to win, we can't let them frame the Medicare debate. And they are already trying to do that.
So let's assume that, facing checkmate on all his other moves, choosing Ryan allowed Romney to stay in the game at least through the convention, and hope either that something horrible happens to the economy, or else that Obama makes a terrible mistake. It's still almost 80 days -- a lifetime in politics.
Because Ryan's choice inevitably brings with it the issues of Medicare and the Ryan budget, the only way the Republicans can win with that millstone around their necks is IF WE ALLOW THEM TO FRAME THE DEBATE.
As I've said in many comments before, and as others have pointed out in previous diaries, framing is everything. The one iron clad rule I learned in law school many decades ago (and which has proven true repeatedly) is WHOEVER FRAMES THE DEBATE WINS. PERIOD. END OF STORY.
I know people want to think that if we have the better argument or the better candidate we will win. It's not true. If we let them frame the debate on the issues, they win. So we must immediately frame the issue on Medicare and the other extreme areas of the Romney/Ryan plan. And there's no time to lose, because (second iron clad rule) FRAMING HAPPENS EARLY IN THE DEBATE.
Le's face it: Democrats have in the past sucked on framing (health care debate ended up being about death panels and government overreach which has cost us dearly).
Here are some other areas where we haven't won the framing:
Pro-Life vs. Pro-Abortion (should always be Pro-choice versus Anti-choice) Sadly, too many even on MSNBC use the "pro-abortion versus pro-life" framing.
Also "entitlements" versus "earned benefit" -- people think of entitlements as something you want for nothing, without having to work for it -- the Republicans have succeeded in making "entitlements" sound like "government hand-outs" .
(One area we won was when the issue of "gay rights" was reframed as "civil rights"-- and in just a few years, the tide turned in favor of "equality for all." Framing works.)
Anyway, we all know areas where the Democrats have lost the framing war. Here let's jus concentrate on the issues of Medicare and Social Security (because if we can frame those two issues, the rest won't matter).
Already, Republican operatives are all over the MSM trying to reframe the Medicare debate as "Obama cut Medicare" by $700B and we Republicans are just trying to "preserve Medicare" for future generations. We need to have a concise, easy-to-understand message on the $700B cuts were not to benefits but to waste and inefficiencies and they lengthened solvency by 8 years. (Rachel unfortunately didn't do that on MTP and instead got into a stupid pissing contest with the NR guy. She lost an opportunity to set the framing and explain the difference to a national audience.)
We also have to consistently talk about "earned benefits" like Medicare and Social Security, which are paid into, and have easy fixes to solvency (change the top limit for paying into the system, for example).
We can't let the republicans frame the debate as "trying to preserve the system" and "entitlements exploding the deficit for our children" and "government handouts".
So . . . let's go kossacks . . .let's have comments with the best way to frame the Medicare and Social Security debates so that proper FRAMING gets out there. We can't rely on the MSM to do the job. We need to do it, and do it quickly.
One framing we must emphasize is: "They cut earned benefits like Medicare not to cut the deficit but to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy." Their tax cuts increase the deficits, and they want us to pay for their tax cuts (entitlements for the very rich).
There was a recent Obama ad (or from superpac, I forget) that made a good case -- they get tax cuts for the rich, you pay for that with cuts in your services-- or something like that.
If we get the proper framing out there, we will win in November.