It's amazing how one great decision can so strongly effect your opinion of a man.
In announcing Paul Ryan as his choice for Vice President yesterday, Mitt Romney showed judgement and courage, as the decision focuses his campaign on the big issues raised by Obama's progressivism and its failure.
The decision shows that Romney understands our economic liberty to be more threatened by federal spending and debt than ever before. This election is more important than any since Lincoln's.
The right is excited -- no -- energized by the choice, for very good reasons. The left also claims to be happy, thinking that the Romney-Ryan ticket will be easier to beat than, say, a Romney-Pawlenty ticket. There is an element of whistling past the graveyard in their glee.
This morning's RealClearPolitics.com front page has links to over 15 separate pieces on the Ryan choice. This piece by A. B. Stoddard of The Hill echoes my theme above. It is said that Bill Clinton got a 15 percentage-point bump out of his choice of Al Gore as running mate. It's not likely that Romney will do that well, but we can dream, can't we?
A year or so ago, I bought gold "Liberty" lapel pins from a vendor in Annapolis, MD to hand out to friends and acquaintances that I saw doing remarkable things in support of freedom. Yesterday, only a few hours after the Romney announcement of Ryan as running mate, I got an email from them showing this array of Romney-Ryan bumper stickers and T-shirts. In Obama's view, of course, government built that very responsive and creative business.
Game on!
