With Paul Ryan’s selection, Campaign 2012 has become less about the current recession, instead featuring more prominently the classic conservative-liberal debate of the past 50 years: big government versus market-based approaches to economic stability and growth.

By contrast, President Obama is still in love with big government, intent on growing its infrastructure and programs. His constant campaign refrain is more stimulus money to build more railways and fix more roads. In fact, his famous Roanoke, Virginia, “you didn’t build that” business yourself passage came in the context of reminding the audience that what had made America great were all the government investments in roads and bridges, space programs and the Internet