Ryan says he seeks a united nation

By DAVID SKOLNICK

skolnick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan said he’s running for president to bring the country together.

During a Saturday rally in downtown Youngstown on West Federal Street, Ryan said: “If there is one value I will bring to the highest office in the land, when I wake up, is going to be how today can I use every ounce of power this office has to help ordinary people do something extraordinary. That’s my pledge to you.”

About 500 people attended the first local event for Ryan of Howland, D-13th, since he announced his presidential candidacy Thursday.

On Saturday, Ryan repeated a message of unity he’s used since officially announcing his campaign two days earlier.

“We stand here today on April 6, 2019, a divided country as you know,” he said. “We’ve been divided for a long time and that division has prevented us from being able to be the best that we can possibly be.”

He added: “If we are not united, we are not going to be able to fix the structural problems we have in the United States. I’m running for president first and foremost to bring this country back together. A divided country is a weak country.”

Ryan said there are politicians who try to put people into “one box or the other. You can’t be for business and for labor. You can’t be for border security and immigration reform, right? You can’t be for cities and rural. You can’t be for the North and the South. You can’t be for men and women. I’m tired of having to choose. I want us to come together as a country.”

Ryan said he would “pledge to you that every time I walk downstairs to the Oval Office that you and your needs and your concerns and your worries will be my worries.”

Ryan said he wants to bring the values he has from being born and raised in the Mahoning Valley to the White House.

“Just maybe the person that can help heal these wounds is a working-class kid from a working-class family from a working-class community who will work his rear end off for the American people,” he said. Ryan is a Niles native.

Ryan is scheduled to appear Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” and then travel to Iowa, the first state with a presidential caucus, and spend a couple of days there. He’ll speak Wednesday at the North Americas Building Trades Unions Legislative Conference and then campaign in New Hampshire, the first state in the nation with a presidential primary.

When asked after the rally how he can stand out in a crowded Democratic group of presidential candidates, Ryan said: “We’re talking about the future. I’m representing communities and families that have been left out, left behind, barely keeping their nose above water economically. They want a president that focuses like a laser beam on the economy, economic security, retirement security, health-care security — and how do we win the future.”

Coming from the Midwest, Ryan said he can win the states that Democrat Hillary Clinton lost in the 2016 presidential election to Republican Donald Trump.

“I believe I can win Ohio,” he said. “I will win western Pennsylvania and therefore [Pennsylvania]. I will win Michigan. I will win Wisconsin and I believe we can put a bunch of other states in play too that aren’t now. I’ll make a real heavy push in rural America.”

Ryan’s challenge is to qualify for the first Democratic debate in Miami on June 26 and 27 – because there are so many potential candidates the debate will be two days with lineups chosen at random.

To qualify, a candidate needs to either have at least 1 percent support in three qualifying polls, or have at least 65,000 unique donors with a minimum of 200 different donors in at least 20 states. Only the top 20 will qualify.

Mandi Merritt, Republican National Committee spokeswoman, said Ryan has a “noticeably blank congressional record. Voters have to wonder why Tim Ryan thinks he’s the answer to the Democrats’ disarray and delusions. Tim Ryan may have finally jumped in a race, but Ohioans know this is yet another bid to nowhere.”