It is now official: Mr. Willard Mitt Romney is the Republican Party nominee to contest the presidency of the United States in 2012. Mr. Romney acquired the requisite number of delegates in the Republican primary race months ago but it took the party convention to make it official. Now, Mr. Romney and his running mate, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, have a little more than two months to make their case to the U.S. public that their ticket is the superior choice for the country and the best option to revive the nation's flagging fortunes.
That notion of "a choice" is a curious decision in itself. Election analysts long insisted that Mr. Romney's best hope to prevail in the November ballot was to make the election a referendum on the tenure of President Barack Obama. In other words, the challenger was best served by the mere assessment of the incumbent's four years in office. Ronald Reagan most famously encapsulated this approach when he ran on the simple question: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" In those terms, a voter's choice is binary — better or worse — and the only factors are Mr. Obama's credibility and performance.
Suggesting that voters should instead choose between the two tickets shifts the analysis. Now, the question is the two competing visions for the nation and the choices are stark. Mr. Romney's vision was captured by the theme of the convention itself: "We Built It." This meme was a response to a comment by Mr. Obama on the campaign trail a few weeks ago, when he told an audience that smart, hardworking people had help, that no individual's success was the product of their effort alone. Rather, societies succeed and individuals benefit from those collective efforts.