Ignoring the Elephant

In August, this writer was encouraged by the selection of Congressman Paul Ryan as Mr. Romney's vice-presidential running mate. The selection signaled that an adult discussion of fiscal policy change in America - the elephant in the room -  would ensue during the political campaign, I suggested.

How wrong, and how naive. Wrong, because both the Romney and Obama teams have aggressively avoided specific talk about government deficits and debt. In the vice-presidential debate, there was some banter about the federal budget, or rather lack thereof, and of entitlement expenditures like Medicare, but much of the exchange between Ryan and Biden concerned - curiously - foreign policy, also the focus of this week's last presidential debate. Mr. Ryan has offered little in public, in recent months, that addresses, arguably, America's central economic issue. Naive, on this writer's part, because what is working for Mr. Romney's team through this campaign is a deliberate vagueness regarding tax and spending plans, both long-term and, even, for the short-term as a way to mitigate the impending "fiscal cliff". Republican strategists have clearly decided that careful discussion of fiscal matters with the American public is no way to defeat Mr. Obama.

"First, win" - as the old political adage goes -  then devise and implement.