THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION
AP PHOTO/DOMINO’S PIZZA, SCOTT GRIES
FINGER
POINTING
A few reasons fed the belief
among Romney loyalists that their
man could run with something
that even some in his own campaign said was a Democratic issue,
not a Republican one.
First, Ryan last year discarded
the most radical elements of his
original budget plan and partnered with a Democrat, Sen. Ron
Wyden of Oregon, to come up with
a compromise, lending a vital bipartisan flavor to his proposal.
Second, while Romney once
said he would have signed Ryan’s
first plan into law, he has otherwise kept from fully embracing
it, insisting over and over that he
has his own plan that differs from
Ryan’s in some details. That gave
him some space to say that he
would not include the $716 billion
in cuts from Medicare that were
part of Obama’s 2010 Affordable
Care Act, which Ryan also included in his budget.
Finally, Obama has yet to offer
specifics about reducing long-term
debt and reforming entitlements.
Obama was hurt politically by his
rejection of the Bowles-Simpson
commission’s recommendations,
which made him look like he was
opposed to any effort to reduce the
deficit and the debt, even though
HUFFINGTON 08.26.12
Romney as managing
director of Bain Capital
in 1998, pictured with
chairman of Domino’s
Pizza Thomas Monaghan.