Paul Ryan's Debt to Barry Goldwater—Who'd Be Mortified by Paul Ryan

Oct 5 2012, 8:01 AM ET
Elias Isquith

The conservative scion vice-presidential nominee seeks to finish the work that the GOP started in 1964, with one crucial revision.

When Mitt Romney announced Paul Ryan would be his vice-presidential choice, the congressman from the Badger State was ebullient. Bounding toward the podium during the glorified photo-op that served as his formal introduction, Ryan's zeal was such that an uninformed observer might have thought the Republican ticket had already won. But Romney and Ryan weren't the only ones with big grins and bigger dreams that morning. Bloomberg's Jonathan Alter, a favorite of the White House, soon reported that Democrats weren't happy about the Ryan pick. They were "ecstatic."

The reason? Despite his affable, aw-shucks demeanor, Ryan is the most ideological and potentially divisive nominee to the White House in a half century. Not since Barry Goldwater proclaimed extremism in defense of liberty to be no vice and moderation in pursuit of justice no virtue has a major party candidate so forcefully challenged America's political status quo.