If you happened to watch Fox News Tuesday night, you would have heard a good bit of carrying on about the Romney campaign’s criminal neglect of Paul Ryan. “Paul Ryan was put on the ticket and he’s a budget guy,” Laura Ingraham moaned. "But then, Paul Ryan was pulled back from discussing the budget." Had Boston only un-muzzled the GOP’s deepest thinker, the logic went, the election outcome could have been vastly different.

I couldn’t agree more! A few more Ryan appearances in the likes of Ohio and Florida and Romney might have lost these states by much larger margins.

Most of what you need to know about why Ryan was kryptonite for the GOP is contained in the pages of the so-called Path to Prosperity, his proposal to roll back government spending, de-fund Medicaid, and hack up Medicare while cutting taxes on the wealthy. Although smaller government polls reasonably well in the abstract—as it did in Tuesday’s exit polls—the most specific elements of Ryan's plan are calamitously unpopular. It’s no surprise that voters decisively rejected it the one chance they had before this week, handing a reliable Republican congressional seat in New York to a little known Democrat in 2011.

Before Romney made Ryan his running mate, conservatives persuaded themselves that the problem wasn’t the plan itself. It was that Ryan, possessed of both a righteous cause and irresistible powers of persuasion, had never had a chance to sell the plan on a national stage. Elevating him to the GOP ticket would correct that particular injustice.

Support thought-provoking, quality journalism. Join The New Republic for $3.99/month.