Mitt Romney picks Paul Ryan as VP running mate

[sluce]

Reported Romney VP pick Ryan


By Liz Goodwin, Yahoo! News | The Ticket – 3 hrs ago.. .

Mitt Romney is expected to announce Saturday morning that he's chosen 42-year-old Paul Ryan to be his running mate. Since 2008, the well-spoken Republican Congressman from Janesville, Wisconsin has emerged as a leading figure on the right and a champion of reduced government spending.

Ryan has earned the admiration of conservatives for the tough, government-slashing budget proposals he's put forward since becoming chairman of the House Budget Committee last year. But when he first arrived in Washington as a freshman lawmaker in 1999 at only 28 years old, budget shrinking wasn't exactly in style.

Ryan told the New Yorker that he was "miserable" during the George W. Bush years, when a Republican-majority Congress added $5 trillion to the debt in war spending, bank bailout, tax cuts, and other costs. But Ryan also tended to vote with the majority at that time, though he put forward unsuccessful proposals to privatize Social Security and made other budget-shrinking suggestions.

In 2008, he released his "Roadmap for America's Future," which described his sweeping vision for how to make America's main entitlement programs of Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid solvent. The plan made him a hero among conservative circles, and Ryan eventually remade it as his "Path to Prosperity" plan, which President Obama and Democrats have criticized for embracing tax cuts while cutting government programs that help the poor. (It wasn't just Democrats who criticized Ryan. While running for president, Newt Gingrich called Ryan's plan "right wing social engineering," which probably helped kill Gingrich's bid.)

President Obama actually helped raise Ryan's profile on the right by critiquing the Congressman's budget, and just last year, Ryan was reportedly mulling his own run for president.

Ryan, an Ayn Rand fan, ably articulates a conservative vision for economic growth; a mark that Romney occasionally misses as he dodges the subject of his own personal wealth. "I think [Obama] looks at the economy as a fixed pie, and that it's government's role and duty to redistribute the slices in the name of equity versus our belief, which is 'Let's just grow the pie' and have an opportunity in our society for upward mobility — a society defined by upward mobility, not equal outcomes," he told Esquire magazine last year. "Under our view, we want to make sure people can get the opportunity to make the most of their lives, but that necessarily means that under the kind of economic-freedom system that we have had, you will have different outcomes of people's lives. And that's fine."

Ryan, who spent his early political career working for Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback and the late Republican Congressman Jack Kemp, grew up the fourth child in a Roman Catholic family in Janesville that has lived in the town for five generations. He worked in his family's construction business after earning his degree in economics from Miami University in Ohio. His father died when he was only 16, which prompted soul-searching that led Ryan to discover the works of Rand, who is still a major influence on him. He and his wife, Janna Little, have three children.

[MontanaMama]

I just don't understand the folks in charge of Romney's campaign - Friday late night? Are they embarrassed by their pick? You usually get a positive bump with Veep announcement and they trampled it. Ryan believes what he believes, frightening as that is, but I don't think this helps Romney much.

[fgg]

he's doable based on this pic

[Sylkyn]

It's official. I'm officially my grandmother. I'm ten years older than the VP running mate. (sigh) It was bad enough being a year older than the President.

[witchcurlgirl]

Mitt Romney to Announce VP This Morning, But Twitter Has Already Chosen Paul Ryan


Ryan, the 42-year-old Congressman from Wisconsin (Yes, -R), appears to be the favorite choice as Mitt Romney's Veep Boy. He's definitely the most viral.

The official announcement is scheduled for 9 a.m. tomorrow in Norfolk, Virginia, but apparently the guy who's the Hollywood Reporter's Oscar tout has some inside information or else this is some elaborate guerilla marketing stunt for that new Will Ferrell movie.

And remember Mobute's take on Ryan:

"At first glance, Ryan looks uncannily like a grown-up Eddie Munster. His gloomy expression, gray complexion and huge widow's peak make him look like some baleful predator. It's just a guess, but his favorite cartoons growing up were probably the "Goodbye Blue Sky" part of The Wall and every sequence in Watership Down when Fiver sees the fields being torn like flesh and the warrens pumping blood like arterial soil. But watching him on the Wisconsin primary trail, humping Romney's leg with the charisma of an autistic undertaker, Ryan looked positively Orthogonian. He's Nixon without the jowls, the education or vision. Ryan has the most famously ill-fitting suits and sweat-beaded upper lip since we booted Dick's ass into exile at San Clemente. And he has the personality and soulless ambition to match. If Paul Ryan didn't have government with which to minister suffering, illness and contempt unto millions, you could easily imagine him applying for a hot new fastracked position as the H.R. Director at a death camp."

Mitt Romney to Announce VP This Morning, But Twitter Has Already Chosen Paul Ryan

[McJag]

A Mormon and a staunch Catholic. God help the women of this country if they actualy get elected.

[LynnieD]

Guy speaks well, doesn't seem like a complete dufus. But time will tell. Awaiting the envitable backlash and dirt! Let the fun begin! Starting to excited for debates....let's continue w/the tradition of making a drinking game during said debates.

[witchcurlgirl]

I'm more concerned about the fact that he's an asshole than that he's a catholic. And Ryan's not even a very good catholic according to catholics:


Catholic Leaders to Rep. Paul Ryan: Stop Distorting Church Teaching to Justify Immoral Budget | Faith in Public Life

Georgetown Catholics Tell Paul Ryan To Go Fountainhead Himself | Ology

Protesters and Priests Say Paul Ryan Not a Good Catholic | Video | TheBlaze.com

"Nuns on the Bus" take on Ryan plan - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

Paul Ryan And Catholics Spar Over Cuts To Poverty Programs | TPMDC

[fgg]

i just saw on fb that romney introduced ryan by saying "here's america's next president!" LOL.

[witchcurlgirl]

Ha!

[McJag]

i just saw on fb that romney introduced ryan by saying "here's america's next president!" LOL.

He did. Look for that on every newscast tonight. Foot in mouth,again.

[LynnieD]

i just saw on fb that romney introduced ryan by saying "here's america's next president!" LOL.

He did. Look for that on every newscast tonight. Foot in mouth,again.

Yes, he will be on every newscast tonight saying that. And they will also show Obama doing the exact same thing in 2008 when he introduced Biden. HOWEVER, Obama corrected it immediately, prior to leaving the podium.

Just had to share that, since they are already comparing.....of course.

[BBDSP]

[sputnik]

he's doable based on this pic

I know. Too bad he's a catholic republican.

eta: i googled him some more, he's totally hot, love the schnozz.

[HWBL]

Good, so now we know the Republican ticket consists out of a creepy uncle type and a very creepy third cousin twice removed type. Romney is slicker than a greased up hog in a mudpile. Don't know enough about that sickly, vampirish looking running mate of his, but being Catholic AND Repug can't be good.
Not saying I'm crazy about the Dems either.