Mitt Romney is not known as a gambling man. When choosing a running mate, many observers expected Romney to make the safest, most cautious choice — most likely Ohio Sen. Rob Portman. By instead choosing Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney is sending a clear signal that he intends to run a more daring and more ideologically vigorous campaign than he has run up to this point. And in that sense, Romney has now become a gambling man.

Although Romney had embraced the Ryan budget plan, he has now embraced its author, too — and in the process moved the issue of entitlement reform and controls on federal spending to the top of the Romney campaign agenda. It wasn’t in such a prominent position before.