Paul Ryan would make a better president than Mitt Romney. Yes, Ryan is “chillingly retro” on women’s issues, according to Maureen Dowd of the New York Times. Yes, he knows squat about foreign policy, as last Thursday’s VP debate demonstrated, but Ryan is earnest, more so than Joseph Biden and his canned laughter or Barack Obama and his calculating ice. And much, much, much more so than Romney and his one-man production of Metamorphosis.
Personally, I prefer Obama to either Romney or Ryan, but without a doubt Ryan would be a better Republican presidential candidate. While Romney tests the winds, Ryan carefully explains his views on abortion, which have changed since he joined the Romney campaign. Ryan used to be against abortion even in cases of rape. Now he says, “I respect people who don’t agree with me, but the policy of a Romney administration will be to oppose abortion with the exception for rape, incest, and life of the mother.” He still communicated that “life begins at conception” and being Catholic was “a factor”. So Ryan shifted positions for Romney, but still acknowledged his core beliefs. That’s more than Romney can claim.
It could be argued that Ryan is simply a better politician than Romney, able to shift without seeming shifty. Or that Romney has changed positions too many times to ever be considered smooth. As Dowd writes, “Romney, a say-anything salesman used to buying whatever he wants, hired his ideology” from Ryan. Ryan does not shy away from his programs. He does present them in their shiny new packages, short on ethos and long on pathos, but he always presents them. Ryan is less afraid of the public opinion poll. The VP candidate smiled a little when Biden derided his Medicare changes as “vouchers” at the debate. (Watch him in action here.) Romney hides his Massachusetts health care plan and presents his moderate governorship as conservative. Ryan just is conservative, period.
I do not agree with Paul Ryan on anything, but at least I know the terms of my disagreement. I know that if Ryan were president Medicare would be altered according to his plan, and I also know what that plan is. I know that Obamacare would be repealed. I know that abortion would be made illegal. With Romney, I do not know. He caters so much to his audience that no one knows what he believes. Sometimes Mitt is conservative, but now in the general election he is more moderate. As governor he enacted a ground-breaking health care law, as candidate he rejected that law. What scares me the most is not having a Tea Party president; it is lacking a leader, and Mitt Romney is no leader.
