Thursday, August 30, 2012
Associated Press
TAMPA, Fla.
Seizing the Republican National Convention spotlight, vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan welcomed “the calling of my generation” to help lead the country in tough times Wednesday night and pledged that Mitt Romney will not duck the difficult decisions needed to repair the economy if he gains the White House this fall.
“After four years of getting the runaround, America needs a turnaround, and the man for the job is Governor Mitt Romney,” the 42-year-old Wisconsin lawmaker told cheering delegates in a packed hall and a prime-time television audience at home. He spoke at a convention dogged by Tropical Storm Isaac, downgraded from a hurricane but still inflicting misery on millions along the nearby northern Gulf Coast.
“We will not duck the tough issues; we will lead,” Ryan said, adding that President Barack Obama and the Democrats “have run out of ideas. Their moment came and went. Fear and division is all they’ve got left.”
To the cheers of the delegates, he pledged Republicans would save Medicare from looming bankruptcy, despite constant accusations from Democrats that the GOP approach would shred the program that provides health care to more than 30 million seniors.
“Our nation needs this debate. We want this debate. We will win this debate,” Ryan declared. But he offered no details of the remedy Republicans would propose.
Romney, in a secondary role if only for a moment, accused Obama of backing “reckless defense cuts” amounting to $1 trillion. Addressing the American Legion in Indianapolis, he said, ‘There are plenty of places to cut in a federal budget that now totals over $3 trillion. But defense is not one of them.”
In Tampa, the Romney team scripted an economy-and-veterans-themed program and kept a wary eye on Isaac. The storm remained a threat to levees in the New Orleans area almost exactly seven years after the calamitous Hurricane Katrina.
Inside the convention hall, delegates cheered a parade of party leaders past, present and — possibly — future.
The presidents Bush, George H.W., elected in 1988, and his son, George W., winner in 2000 and 2004, were featured in an evocative video. Arizona Sen. John McCain, the party’s 2008 nominee, spoke on his 76th birthday and said he wished he’d been there under different circumstances. And an array of ambitious younger elected officials preceded Ryan to the podium, Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and John Thune of South Dakota among them.
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised the Republican ticket in a speech that made no overt mention of Obama. “Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will rebuild us at home and inspire us to lead abroad. They will provide an answer to the question, ‘Where does America stand?’”