Paul Ryan in Ohio

The sleepy town of Oxford, Ohio generally wakes back up in mid-August for the beginning of Miami University’s school year, but this summer, the city woke up a little early and is still abuzz with excitement over Mitt Romney’s choice of Representative Paul Ryan as his Vice Presidential candidate.

Though first-year move in day was still a day away, students, faculty, alumni, and residents of the surrounding areas turned out in droves for a rally to see their favorite son yesterday at 6 PM.  Ryan was accompanied by the highly popular US Senator Rob Portman and often embattled, but vivacious Ohio Governor John Kasich.  The three fired up the receptive crowd with their anti-Obama, pro growth messaging.

And while student perceptions of Ryan’s political views may be mixed; all of Oxford is excited about the notoriety the University is receiving in the wake of the selection.  Ryan is the first Miamian on the national ticket since Republican alumni Benjamin Harrison tabbed Whitelaw Reid his running mate for his failed reelection bid in 1893.

One student saw the pick as a rejection of the pragmatism this big moment in our countries history requires.

"Picking him said you're riding on the coattails of his budget plan and highly ideological approach.  I saw Romney as more of somebody who wanted to get things done, but not so much anymore after this decision.  It's almost like he just picked his younger brother or a younger version of himself," second-year student Jonathan Fox, a political science major, said.

Fox is a firm vote for Obama, but may have been persuaded to cross over had Romney picked another moderate Republican like the genteel Conservative, as dubbed by Politico's Jonathan Martin, Portman.

There's no doubt that the Ryan choice fundamentally shifted the conversation in the race.  For the first few months, voters were forced to endure an almost entirely negative Obama message from the Romney campaign, since polls indicate voters care about the economy more than any other issue, and also trust Romney's ability to guide the economy more than President Obama.

The Romney campaign, understanding they lacked the ability to run on their candidate's record as Massachusetts Governor, where his greatest legislative success was the passage of a health care reform bill including an individual mandate, speak about his Mormon faith, or discuss his highly successful career running Bain Capital after the Obama team successfully discredited his job creation record there.

These factors caused the campaign to play it safe and hammer away at the President's handling of the economy.  It was widely assumed that this strategy, cultivated by Romney's Chief Strategist Stuart Stevens, would continue all the way to November given the close nature of the race, and the VP pick would be a safe one that did not rock the boat; however as Dan Hirschhorn, a political reporter for The Daily, tweeted, "Source: Ryan pick 'means Romney's got control of his campaign-Stuart Stevens was fighting for Portman until the last dog died.'"

The counter narrative, driven by Team Obama all along has been that this election is a clear choice between two distinct visions for the future--the extreme right-wing one pushed mostly by the highly unpopular Republicans in Congress, and the balanced approach called for by many prominent Democrats, including the President.

The President wanted the race to be about no government vs. government playing an important role, and Romney wanted a referendum on Obama's handling of the economy.

By choosing the ideological leader of the Republican Party, Ryan, Romney has acquiesced to Obama's narrative.  Ryan admits as much in his standard stump speech where he says "this election is a clear choice."  Romney made the calculation that a referendum would not make him President, and made a risky possibly politically foolish move in the process.

Embracing Ryan means embracing his controversial budget and proposals to reform medicare, and despite the fact that there is currently a lot of talk about the American people embracing responsibility on our unsustainable entitlement spending, history shows us that hammering the other side on medicare cuts is a huge political winner (see 1996 and 2010 as great examples).

Of course this means it's likely that the Romney-Ryan ticket loses big--it's much easier to caricature the bold than to actually provide real solutions, which is what the political left will do on Medicare this fall.  It's also true that premium support and turning Medicare into a voucher system will probably not be popular with Americans in important swing states like Ohio (and Florida) with aging labor forces who rely on the program.

The reality is, Paul Ryan is an ideologue in a country that's young people are desperately desiring non-ideological pragmatic solutions, and while students at Miami University may be excited to see an alumni rise to a level of such prominence there is an understanding that far right and far left proposals are unlikely to get us out of our current mess.