Mitt Romney picks Paul Ryan as his running mate.
Ending a months-long search by presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney for a running mate to join him in facing Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in the November 6 election; Romney has announced that Paul Ryan will be his Vice President.
Extolling his virtues, Romney said of Ryan at the announcement:
“He doesn’t demonize his opponents. He understands honorable people can have honest differences, “He’s never been content to simply curse the darkness. He’d rather light candles”
According to Romney, Ryan, 42, “has become an intellectual leader of the Republican Party,” stressing that their campaign will focus on ways to create jobs, protect Medicare and Social Security, and repeal the health care law enacted under Democratic President Barack Obama.
Paul Ryan is currently serving a seventh term in the United States House of Representatives where he chairs the House Budget Committee. He played a prominent role in drafting and promoting the Republican Party’s long-term budget proposals and it is believed that his nomination will bring the debate over how to reduce government spending and debt to the forefront of the race for the White House.
Of particular note is the budget plan he proposed as House budget chairman that would include controversial cuts in government health programs for the elderly and poor.
As an alternative to the 2012 budget proposal of President Barack Obama, he introduced a plan ‘The Path to Prosperity’ which included the controversial changes to medicare referred to earlier. Then in response to Obama’s 2013 budget, he helped introduce “The Path to Prosperity: A Blueprint for American Renewal; in March of this year.
In response to the announcement, Obama’s campaign manager Jim Messina said in a statement that Ryan shares Romney’s commitment to “the flawed theory that new budget-busting tax cuts for the wealthy, while placing greater burdens on the middle class and seniors, will somehow deliver a stronger economy.”
While Ryan considered young by some, it is believed by the Republicans that this will inject some life into the election campaign while others have pushed for his nomination for the budgetary policies Ryan promotes.
The Wall Street Journal had urged Romney to pick Ryan:
The case for Mr. Ryan is that he best exemplifies the nature and stakes of this election,” the paper wrote. “More than any other politician, the House budget chairman has defined those stakes well as a generational choice about the role of government and whether America will once again become a growth economy or sink into interest-group dominated decline.”
Under Wisconsin law, Ryan is allowed to run concurrently for Vice President as he competes for his eighth term in Congress.
