Reax
Paul Ryan Hits the Trail
Ryan: More Powerful Than Romney
Chris Maddaloni, CQ Roll Call / Getty Images
In pressuring Mitt Romney into choosing Paul Ryan, the far right has pulled off a coup. As in, coup d’état.Think about this for a second. In the primaries Romney faced a series of more right-wing challengers: Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain.
What Mitt Just Bought
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
Mitt Romney finally found a way to fire up the base—the other guy’s base. One needn’t venture beyond these pages to encounter gleeful liberal depictions of Romney’s new running mate, Paul Ryan, as an unhinged Randian plutocrat whose plans to kill Medicare (among other mustache-twirling villainies) will make him a “juicy target” for Obama and the Democrats this fall.
Be Afraid, Seniors
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
It’s hard to tell who’s happiest now that House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan is joining the Republican ticket. Conservatives love him as one of their own, while Democrats see him as making their job a whole lot easier. For months, Democrats have been calling the budget plan that Ryan authored “the Romney-Ryan plan,” and now it’s official.
Murdoch Gets His Man
Getty Images
It would be too much to say that Rupert Murdoch pushed Paul Ryan onto the Republican presidential ticket. But he certainly gave the conservative congressman a strong nudge.The media mogul used a combination of private persuasion, newspaper crusading, and Twitter talk to urge Mitt Romney’s campaign to shake things up.
Double the Pomade
Win McNamee / Getty Images
Every political campaign relies on visual shorthand and tried-and-true symbolism to help communicate its message. And so, against the backdrop of the retired battleship USS Wisconsin, supporters waited for Mitt Romney to introduce his vice-presidential running mate: U.
Defense Hawks, Rejoice!
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
With the Republican Party's foreign-policy establishment at odds over central questions on national security, the selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's choice for vice president tilts the ticket closer to the neoconservatives on key questions about America's role in the world and the size of the military.
A Stunning, Terrible Choice
T.J. Kirkpatrick
Paul Ryan? Really? It’s a stunning choice. A terrible one too. By making it, Mitt Romney tells America that he is not his own man and hasn’t even the remotest fleeting desire to be his own man. He is owned by the right wing. Did I write a couple of weeks ago that Romney was insecure? Well—Q.
Romney’s Smart Pick
Win McNamee / Getty Images
Mitt Romney's choice of Rep. Paul Ryan to be his running mate will make this election campaign dramatically better. Rather than the grammar-school, nanny-nanny-boo-boo politics we have been subjected to by both sides over the past month or so, now the discussion will immediately turn to Ryan's budget plan.
Ryan's Extreme Abortion Views
Allison Shelley / Getty Images
By now, you surely know, if you didn’t already, that Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential pick, wants to privatize Social Security and turn Medicare into a voucher system. You might have read that, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, his economic plan “calls for radical policy changes that would result in a massive transfer of resources from the broad majority of Americans to the nation’s wealthiest individuals.
The Plutocrat Ticket
Scott Olson / Getty Images
In selecting Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney has doubled-down on the one thing he has never flip-flopped on: economic elitism. Romney, born to wealth, has selected Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, who was also born to wealth. As the former University of Oklahoma football coach, Barry Switzer, once said of someone else: both these guys were born on third and thought they hit a triple.
Romney’s Bold Gamble
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Let’s hope they asked him to spell “potato.” For those either too young to remember or too normal to be obsessed with politics, today is not the first time a wealthy guy with a big family and trouble with “the vision thing” chose as his running mate someone young, telegenic, and conservative in order to please those wacky right wingers he never deigned to understand.
What’s Right and Wrong in the Ryan Plan
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Or as we will now learn to call it, the "Romney plan for a stronger middle class".Paul Ryan is right that the growth in Medicare costs represents a large problem for the future and must sooner or later be dealt with.
Romney's Empathy-Free Veep
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Mitt Romney started off this campaign cycle as a noblesse oblige candidate. The son of a rich man, and a rich man in his own right, he faced something of a challenge running as a Republican. Really rich people can win elections in the U.
Mitt Plays to His Right
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
Mitt Romney is playing to his right by naming Paul Ryan as his running mate, instantly transforming the election into a debate over the Wisconsin congressman’s divisive budget-slashing plan.Based on a report from NBC confirmed by other news organizations, Romney will introduce the Wisconsin congressman as his vice-presidential pick in Norfolk on Saturday morning.
Don’t Forget About Medicaid
Joe Burbank / Getty Images
My brother-in-law Vincent sits with me as I finish this piece. He is intellectually disabled and has been repeatedly hospitalized, most recently last week. As someone who relies on Medicare, he will be deeply affected by the outcome of this election.
Nuns Gun for Paul Ryan
J. Scott Applewhite / AP Photos
Sister Simone Campbell says she is on a mission to protect the poor—from Rep. Paul Ryan.This summer, the outspoken Catholic nun led a bus tour across the country called “Nuns on the Bus,” protesting the Wisconsin congressman’s proposed federal budget plan, which she says would slash funds for social programs for low-income people.
Paul Ryan’s Bow-Hunting Bullseye
Facebook
In American history, bow hunting has not always been as closely correlated with sex appeal as it is today. Fortunately for Paul Ryan, the swimming-pool-eyed vice-presidential candidate and expert marksman, his sport of choice is basically synonymous with rugged, panting, anti-authoritarian teen virility right now.
Ryan Helps Romney Raise $7.4M
Darren Hauck / Getty Images
The money keeps rolling in. The announcement of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) as Mitt Romney’s running mate is proving to be a financial windfall for the GOP presidential hopeful. Campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul announced on Twitter Tuesday that the new Romney–Ryan ticket has already raised $7.
Is Ryan a Ticking Time Bomb?
Darren Hauck / Getty Images
We have learned, in the three short days since Paul Ryan was catapulted into the national spotlight, that he skins and butchers animals to make his own Polish sausage (courtesy of The New York Times). That he is “pretty low-maintenance” (as his wife, Janna, tells People).
Romney Just Lost the Jewish Vote
Julie Jacobson / AP Photo
Maybe Mitt Romney should have saved the airfare. Sure, July’s Israel trip helped him with his Jewish donors and perhaps with some Christian evangelicals. But if it bought him any good will among Jewish voters, he’s just given it back—and then some—by selecting Rep.
Ryan’s Phony Deficit Plan
Sara D. Davis / Getty Images
By picking Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney has doubled down on a public-relations strategy of phony deficit reduction. Despite what you may have heard to the contrary, Republicans’ caterwauling about deficits and debt is eyewash to gull the public into believing they are serious fiscal stewards.
Ryan Budget Battle Begins
T.J. Kirkpatrick / Getty Images
Even before Mitt Romney tapped Rep. Paul Ryan to be his running mate Saturday, the congressman’s aggressive, often controversial budget plans had made him a lightning rod in congressional races across the country.Now that he’s on the ticket with Romney, Ryan and his trail of budget blueprints will play an outsize role in races down the ballot and across the country.
Poll: Ryan Pick Deeply Unpopular
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Will Mitt Romney regret choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate? The announcement that the Wisconsin congressman will join the Republican ticket as vice president garnered one of the least positive reactions in history, a new USA Today/Gallup poll reports.
Is Ryan the Right Choice?
Jason E. Miczek / AP Photo
For Ryan1. “The Ryan Choice,” by The Wall Street Journal “In choosing the 42-year-old, Mr. Romney has embraced the GOP’s reform wing and made it more likely that the election debate will be as substantial as America’s current problems,” said The Wall Street Journal’s editorial pages in the wake of Romney’s announcement.
Ryan’s Budget Needs Beef
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
The addition of Paul Ryan to the Republican ticket for the 2012 presidential election has been hailed by many as a welcome turn in the campaign away from vacuous mudslinging and toward a more substantive debate about pressing issues.
Paul Ryan’s Hard-Body Plan
Tom Williams, CQ Roll Call / Getty Images
New vice presidential hopeful Paul Ryan has been called many things—a dangerous extremist, the future of the Republican Party, a mistake, a risk—but one thing nearly everyone can agree on is that he’s quite serious. That seriousness extends beyond cutting government spending.
How Would Ryan Affect Women?
J. Scott Applewhite / AP Photo
AbortionRep. Paul Ryan is on record saying that he believes life begins at conception. He opposes “partial-birth” abortions and has a 100 percent rating from the National Right to Life Committee. Ryan, a staunch Roman Catholic, also believes abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape and incest.
Mrs. Ryan Is a Natural
Saul Loeb, AFP / Getty Images
For a newcomer to the national stage, Janna Christine Little Ryan comes across as remarkably poised and confident, with a winning smile and a fashionably windswept look—in short, what’s known in the business as a natural.And no wonder; politics were in her DNA long before she met and married Rep.
Mitt’s Pick: Bold Not Always Best
Darren Hauck / Getty Images
Why did Mitt Romney choose Paul Ryan? Movies. In action movies, the climactic scene often goes something like this: The bad guys have captured the hero. He’s bound and gagged thousands of miles from civilization as the final minutes tick away until the detonation of the super-thermo-subatomic death ray that will kill both him and half of humanity.
Plus
More Ryan Reactions
7 Great Reads on Paul Ryan
Read up on the Wisconsin congressman, from last week’s definitive "New Yorker" profile to a revealing interview with Ezra Klein.
7 Fun Facts About Paul Ryan
From noodling a whole mess of catfish to head-banging to Led Zeppelin, Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan is more than a number-crunching policy wonk. Here are seven things you likely didn’t know about the Congressman and Ayn Rand devotee.
Oops! Romney Introduces Ryan as President
Mitt Romney introduced Paul Ryan as 'the next President of the United States' this morning—and promised to uphold Medicare, which Ryan's budget gutted.
Paul Ryan’s High School Yearbook Pics
Mitt Romney's new running mate was voted 'biggest brown-noser' by his senior-year classmates.
