Have to admit to being presently surprised at Mitt Romney’s choice of Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan as his VP running mate. Honestly didn’t think dude had it in him. Me? I was resigned to Romney picking some milquetoast candidate like former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty or, even worse, Ohio senator Rob Portman – just what we need on the GOP side: a total snoozefest ticket to confirm what most Tea Party and conservative folks always dreaded about Romney to begin with: that, as much as he played hardball against his GOP opponents during the primaries, he’d do a John McCain and lay down and play loser during the general election.

The choice of Ryan shows that Romney plans on making this election not as much about everyday politics as much as a visionfor America? Are we to go the way of Europe and become an entitlement society where only a few hard-workers pay for the lesiure and benefits of a majority of people, with a bloated federal bureaucracy choosing who, what, and when people are to qualify for those benefits? Or, are we to return to ideals that makes America unique in the world – the idea that there are no equals when it comes to opportunity but equality in terms that anyone, if they’re willing to work hard enough and pursue their passions enough can achieve the American dream for themselves, whatever avenue that might take them.

Me? I think this country needs a “big vision” election, whether it likes it or not. Between the John Boehners, Mitch McConnells, Harry Reids, and Nancy Pelosis there are too many small-minded politicians; folks who are only concerned with winning the next election and not being criticized in the New York Times or Washington Post. This country is hurtling towards an economic disaster of biblical proportions: if not Mitt Romney, then who? If Barack Obama is given a second term, God only knows what this country will look like in 2016. I don’t think I’m over-dramatizing this by any stretch.

Hot Air’s Allahpundit, I think, speaks for the majority of conservatives and more than just a few Independents when he writes:

I would have voted for Ryan for president if he had run so, as you might expect, I like the pick. To me, it’s a “clear conscience” selection: We’re going to own our agenda, let our very best salesman make the pitch on the biggest possible stage, and have the country decide. If they want to send The One back for a second term knowing that the consequences are a near-term fiscal meltdown, hey, that’s democracy. At least, for once, they’ll have made a fully informed choice on this issue; if the electorate prefers the $15 Trillion-Dollar Man’s “vision” on how to solve this existential problem to Paul Ryan’s, I prefer to have a clear statement at the polls to that effect. [Slate.com’s] William Saletan is almost giddy over Ryan’s selection, not because he thinks it’s a sure winner for Democrats but because we’re finally guaranteed a meaningful argument on a matter of deepest consequence by a guy who can make it better than anyone else.

Forget about all the huffing and puffing of liberals and Democrats crowing about Ryan’s selection for VP – this is Back Obama’s worst nightmare come to pass. This isn’t a Sarah Palin who will be jerked around by a hungry media probing for weakness in experience or expertise; putting Paul Ryan on the ticket guarantees a debate over the kind of country America is to be starting in 2013. Now we know this is to be a watershed election: instead of bickering about wife-killer Romney and his tax returns, we can actually debate our larger socio-economic problems and solutions. And that’s great for the country – if people choose the socialist/soft communism model of Barack Obama, it won’t be because the nation wasn’t given a choice. If that’s the kind of nation people want, we’re done for; hopefully, I’ll be dead before things really start taking a nosedive.

Call me an idealist if you will, but I believe that, given the choice between a ticket that makes a positive argument for a return to fiscal sanity, personal freedom, and the ideals by which this nation was founded upon, and a cynical, class- and race-baiting ticket running solely on the politics of personal destruction the nation will prefer the former. Make no mistake about it: as Ulsterman’s White House Insider reports today, Barack Obama just sh*t his pants at the prospect of having to run against not just Mitt Romney, but a VP candidate who won’t be afraid to call the President and his circle of filthy liars for exactly what they are. After all, it’s not as if he hasn’t done it before.

One final and important note: as Paul Rahe notes, by broadening the scope of this election beyond unemployment rates, tax returns, and the pros and cons of venture capitaliam, down-ticket GOP House and Senate candidates now have a platform to run on to contrast themselves with their Democratic counterparts:

This will alter radically the dynamics of the race. The money spent by Obama trying to demonize Governor Romney will prove to be money entirely wasted. The election is not going to be about Mitt Romney. It is not going to be about the sexual revolution. It is not going to be about Bain Capital. It is going to be about the failed policies of Barack Obama, about their dangerous character, and about the sober, sound alternative the Republicans represent.

This will help the Republicans in Senate and House races immeasurably, for it will give Romney and Ryan coattails — now, without a doubt, the candidates in these other races have something concrete on which to run: repeal Obamacare, pare back the entitlements state, reform our system of taxation, and put our fiscal house in order. No one will doubt the capacity of the Republicans to rule.

I know it’s a crap-shoot: you don’t run “big idea” campaigns without some risk that peope, just don’t want to deal with it. I’m OK with that – if that’s the way the country wants to go, so be it. But at least with Paul Ryan as part of the ticket we’ll hash this out once and for all, for better or for worse. Congratulations to Mitt Romney for a very courageous decision – by changing the dynamics of the 2012 election irrevocably by exapanding it to include a vision of what America ought to be you done good.