How much was that considered in Boston as Romney was settling on Ryan? One adviser said: “Clearly it was in the discussion. You have to have that discussion.”
A Republican strategist with some familiarity of the discussions said that “of course the campaign understood that Democrats were going to attack on Medicare if Paul Ryan were the vice presidential nominee. But they also understood that Democrats were going to attack on Medicare if he wasn’t. . . . Having someone who is steeped in it and who knows the best way to respond and prevail is an asset.”
The question is whether Romney overestimated the pluses of picking Ryan and underestimated the minuses.
The headlines in Florida over the weekend spoke to the challenge by noting the potential problem of winning over senior citizens with Ryan on the ticket. Could that make it more difficult for Romney to take a state that is absolutely crucial to his hopes of winning the election?
Ryan’s plan would not touch Medicare for those already in the system or those nearing retirement. That hasn’t stopped Democrats in the past from accusing Republicans of wanting to gut the entire program. Nor will such criticism stop over the next 85 days.
Republicans say they fare better when the debate on the future of Medicare is fully engaged and out in the open. With Ryan on the ticket, they believe, that’s more likely to happen now, rather than in the last weeks before the election in an under-the-radar campaign by Democrats using direct mail and other means.
“We are going to go on offense on Medicare,” said Ed Gillespie, a senior adviser to the Romney campaign.
The former Massachusetts governor offered the first outlines of the attack against Obama in an interview Sunday with CBS’s Bob Schieffer on “60 Minutes.” Romney accused the president of robbing Medicare of more than $700 billion to help pay for his health-care overhaul. Ryan’s plan would keep those cuts; Romney’s would restore them.
Gillespie said the campaign will focus on Obama’s Medicare cuts.
“Every senior citizen voter in Florida and every other targeted state will know that by November,” he vowed. “They’ll know that the Romney-Ryan approach is to protect current beneficiaries, those at or near retirement. . . . We like the contrast.”
Some Republicans agree that Romney can win a debate on Medicare, but others are skeptical.
“Romney and Ryan are both data-driven guys, and there’s no question they will win the intellectual argument about whether we need to reform Medicare,” said one GOP strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to give a candid assessment. “But it’s a real open question about whether they can win the emotional and political one.”
Until this weekend, Romney’s campaign had been on the defensive, battered by Obama’s attacks on the candidate’s private-sector record at Bain Capital and his decision not to release more than two years of tax returns.
The belief in Boston is that the rollout of a running mate will shift and elevate the campaign debate. The next few weeks will show how prepared they are to win it.
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