Paul Ryan: Let The Idea People Lead

In the search for a strategy to rebuild the Republican Party, party leaders have focusing their efforts on criticizing Democrats, especially President Obama's hefty stimulus and spending bills. But Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan argues that a hefty dose of the solution must come from looking within. Defining new principles might be part of the answer, but Ryan sees opportunity in offering concrete alternatives to Obama's approach to the economy and what he thinks is a disingenuous kind of bipartisanship. NEWSWEEK's Holly Bailey asked Ryan what went wrong and where to start fixing it. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Is the Republican Party without a true leader right now?
Paul Ryan: To me, it really doesn't matter the name of the person or who a particular leader is, it's what we do, what we stand for and what case we are going to make to the American people, based on our ideas. Obviously, we are the loyal opposition, and we are going to be critical of the Democrats when they are going in the wrong direction. But what matters the most is not who we pick to lead us, it's what ideas we offer to the American people as an alternative to what the left is doing. That's really all that counts in my mind. The people who should lead us are the ideas people, who are going to take our principles and apply them to today's problems and offer the American people innovative solutions based on those principles, and I don't really care what the guy's name is or the girl or who. That's not what matters. I see that person as not so much a political person but [as] ideas people.

So who are the ideas people?
Eric Cantor is definitely an ideas guy, who is in leadership. In the states, I think Bobby Jindal is a big-ideas person. There are a lot of ideas people who are going to matter more toward the future of the party, in the respect of giving people a clear choice and alternative, rather than somebody who can deliver good spin on a talk show. I don't think that stuff really quite matters. What matters is what are we offering to the American people and who is going to help come up with those ideas.

Does it suck the oxygen out of the room when you have this back and forth that we've had this past week between Rush Limbaugh and the White House?
I am personally ignoring it. It's just not … I ignore it. I don't pay attention to that stuff, but I see that as a pretty good strategy on [White House chief of staff] Rahm [Emanuel]'s part to have a good few days for them. Next week, this will be an afterthought. It's a diversion away from the things that matter, and we've got to focus on the issues that matter.

How did the GOP get to this point? It wasn't so long ago that you had a Republican in the White House and your party controlled Congress.
We became ideas-atrophied. We stopped taking our principles and applying them to the problems of the day to give people innovative solutions. We stagnated with ideas, and then we literally practiced a pretty good dose of hypocrisy on spending. And so I think people saw this sort of reform-minded party coming to power in '94 [that] slowly atrophied to the boring status quo. We've got to go back and revive ourselves as the reform party, not the status-quo-power party, and that's kind of where we are right now in the midst of that revival.

What was your lesson from the 2008 campaign? There are some in the GOP who have pointed the finger at Karl Rove for the problems, saying he had pushed a strategy of dividing the party to the point there were no room for moderates and independents.
Lately, we've practiced machine politics, and that's what the Democrats do. They do machine politics by rewarding certain coalitions and constituencies, and hoping they assemble enough support to have plurality. And we, more or less, did that as well. We need to go beyond that and build a movement that's based on ideas, that seeks to have no limits. We need a party that doesn't have a 15-point litmus test, where either you're in or you're out. We've got to go back to our core ideas. Here's who we are, here's what we believe in, here's what we want to do. If you agree with us, join us. That's what we should have been doing instead of trying to assemble coalition by coalition, by focus-grouped policy by focus-grouped policy, to just get 51 percent. That's what the old regime did, and at the end of the day, that 51 percent ended up being 47 percent.

How does the party find its way against a president whose approval ratings are …
"Off the charts"?

... nearing 70 percent?
[Laughs.] Gosh, when I get the answer, I'll call and tell you. It's tough to do. Look, I think we have to accept the fact that we have one of the most gifted presidents in a long time, with respect to rhetoric and persuasion. I don't think we're going to be able to out-Obama Obama. We're not going to be able to give better speeches. I think we just have to have better ideas. The way to compete is to offer a different vision for the country and offer a different plan for the country and let the American people decide. It just comes down to that. We have a left-of-center president in a right-of-center country, and we need to go to the people and show how we think our ideas and principals are more in keeping with the tradition of America and what people aspire for this country to become.

President Obama has put a lot of emphasis on bipartisanship, something that polls show people really want. Do you really think bipartisanship is truly possible in Washington?
I do, but I think they've decided against it. The rhetoric sounds like it, but in his last [radio] address, the president threw down a gauntlet on anybody who dare opposes his budget, which is the most sweeping transformation we've seen since the New Deal. He didn't say that he wanted to change the tone or compromise or bring people together. He said you're either for my budget or you're a tool of the special interests and the powerful, and I'm going to fight you.

How long do you think it will take Republicans to rebuild the party?
I think it will be faster than everybody thinks. Things just move faster now. The flow of information, technology, the 24-hour news cycle, the Internet; everything is faster. People make up their minds faster. People change their minds faster. I just don't think public opinion moves at the glacial pace beat it moved at in the '70s and the '80s and even in the early '90s. Things move so much faster, and we have to be in sync with that kind of movement and be ready to talk about our ideas.