Thursday, July 21, 2016
CLEVELAND
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan compared the fight to capture the Republican Party’s presidential nomination with Big 10 college football.
“We fight each other in the conference,” said Ryan of Wisconsin, who is a Miami University graduate.
“But then, when one of us goes to the Rose Bowl, we all root for each [other]. We do,” he added.
Ryan spoke Wednesday to the Ohio delegation to the Republican National Convention at the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel in Cleveland. He was warmly greeted by the delegation that gave him standing ovations when he was introduced and when he finished.
While Ryan preached unity in the party, it wasn’t until the second-to-last line of his 15-minute speech that he mentioned nominee Donald Trump.
“We’re all on the same team. We all want the same thing,” he said. “Voting for anybody but Donald Trump means you’re voting for Hillary Clinton. Let’s remember that.”
After Ryan spoke to the Ohio delegation, state GOP chairman Matt Borges said, “I hate to disagree with the speaker,” but when the University of Michigan plays in a bowl game, he doesn’t cheer for the team.
Before the lone Trump mention, Ryan spoke about several members of the state’s congressional delegation, praising the work they’re doing.
The speaker said U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson of Marietta, R-6th, is the “quarterback” when it comes to “fighting for coal country.”
Ryan also criticized Clinton and President Barack Obama. “Hillary Clinton is a third Obama term,” he said.
The country has declined during Obama’s nearly eight years as president, Ryan said.
“We don’t have national security,” he said.
And Obama, Ryan said, has failed on domestic issues, most notably health care.
“This health-care law is going to collapse under its own weight,” he said.
Obamacare – the Affordable Care Act the president signed into law in 2010 – needs to be repealed and replaced with a system that put control of health care in the hands of patients and doctors, Ryan said.
Changes are needed to lower taxes, reduce the size of government, strengthen national security and reduce poverty, he said.
A Republican in the White House – though he didn’t name Trump – would “put these reforms in place,” Ryan said.
Dave Johnson, the Columbiana County GOP chairman, an RNC delegate, said Ryan is “a great leader, he’s young, he’s energetic, articulate, he’s a policy guy, he’s a thoughtful conservative, and has been able to bring the caucus together.”
Ryan, who was Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate in the 2012 election, spent a lot of time in Ohio during that failed campaign.
“Ohio is the determiner of where this nation goes,” he said.
After Trump captured enough delegates to be the Republican presidential nominee, Ryan was slow to endorse the New York billionaire and was quite critical of him at times.
The Clinton campaign sent an email to reporters about that with “Paul Ryan holds nose, embraces Trump” as the subject line.
The email read: “Despite repeatedly attacking Trump’s divisive rhetoric and dangerous policies, Speaker Paul Ryan has chosen to put politics over country and wholeheartedly endorse Donald Trump for president.”
The email included Ryan’s criticism in June of Trump’s remarks about the heritage of a judge overseeing a Trump University lawsuit, calling it a “textbook definition of a racist comment.”
The email also had Ryan’s response in December to Trump’s call to temporarily ban all Muslims from entering the United States. Ryan said that it “is not what this party stands for, and, more importantly, it’s not what this country stands for.”
Trump has made adjustments to his proposed temporary ban, but has not completely withdrawn it.