US News

Mitt Romney and new running mate Paul Ryan pledge to ‘restore the greatness of this country’

WASHINGTON — That’s the ticket!

Mitt Romney made a bold move in picking as his running mate Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman behind a hot-button conservative plan to slash deficits and reform Medicare.

“Paul Ryan is a leader,” declared Romney as he introduced his VP pick for the first time today in front of the battleship USS Wisconsin docked at the naval museum in Norfolk, Va.

Basking in the cheers of hundreds of supporters in Norfolk, Va. Romney and Ryan served up a made-for-TV debut of a ticket they hope will make President Obama’s first term his last.

“I did not make a mistake with this guy,” Romney exulted.

OOPS: ROMNEY INTRODUCES RYAN AS ‘THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES’

Romney stressed that Ryan possessed youthful energy, Catholic faith and steadfast conservative convictions.

“With energy and vision, Paul Ryan has become an intellectual leader of the Republican Party,” said Romney. “He understands the fiscal challenges facing America: our exploding deficits and crushing debt – and the fiscal catastrophe that awaits us if we don’t change course.”

Romney promised that this new GOP ticket would offer Americans “bold, specific and achievable” solutions, including a plan to “create 12 million new jobs and bring better take home pay to middle class families.”

“I am deeply excited and honored to join you as your running mate,” Ryan said in his first words at the podium.” He said that together, “we will restore the greatness of this country.”

Ryan wasted no time going after President Obama.

He recalled a saying by his father, who died when Ryan was young: “Son, you are either part of the problem or part of the solution.”

“Regrettably, President Obama has become part of the problem,…and Mitt Romney is the solution,” Ryan said to cheers from the crowd.

He continued: “The other thing my dad would say is that every generation of Americans leaves their children better off. That’s the American legacy.”

“Sadly, for the first time in our history, we are on a path which will undo that legacy,” Ryan said. “That is why we need new leadership to become part of the solution – new leadership to restore prosperity, economic growth, and jobs.”

Obama and his Democratic allies have long railed against Ryan’s budget plan, which passed the GOP-led House but stalled in the Democrat-run Senate.

Team Obama had previously even tried to link Romney to that GOP budget by calling it the “Romney-Ryan” plan.

Romney made the bold move of embracing that label when he selected Ryan.

The Romney-Ryan ticket will be ratified by delegates to the Republican National Convention that begins on Aug. 27 in Tampa, Fla.

Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden will be nominated for a second term at the Democratic convention the following week.

One campaign official said Romney settled on Ryan on Aug. 1, more than a week ago, and informed Beth Myers, the longtime aide who had shepherded the secretive process that led to the selection. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details.

In making his pick, Romney bypassed other potential running mates, including Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell.

Officials said he had called all four to notify them of his decision.

There was one unscripted moment, when Romney mistakenly introduced Ryan as “the next president of the United States.”

He returned to the podium to say, “Every now and then I’m known to make a mistake. I didn’t make a mistake with this guy. But I can tell you this, he is going to be the next vice president of the United States.”

At 42, Ryan is a more than two decades younger than the 65-year-old Romney.

His conservative credentials are highly regarded by fellow Republican House members, while numerous polls during the primaries of winter and spring found that Romney’s credentials were suspect among the party’s core supporters.

A seven-term congressman, Ryan is chairman of the House Budget Committee, and primary author of conservative tax and spending blueprints that the tea party-infused Republican majority approved over vociferous Democratic opposition in 2011 and again in 2012.

They envision transforming Medicare into a program in which future seniors would receive government checks that they could use to purchase health insurance. Under the current program, the government directly pays doctors, hospitals and other health care providers.

Ryan and other supporters say the change is needed to prevent the program from financial calamity. Critics argue it would impose ever-increasing costs on seniors.

Other elements of the budget plan would cut projected spending for Medicaid, which provides health care for the poor, as well as food stamps, student loans and other social programs that Obama and Democrats have pledged to defend.

In all, it projected spending cuts of $5.3 trillion over a decade and cut future projected deficits substantially.

It also envisions a far reaching overhaul of the tax code of the sort Romney has promised.

Romney and Ryan appeared unusually comfortable with each other when they campaigned together earlier in the year. The former governor eagerly shared the microphone with the younger man and they shared hamburgers at a fast food restaurant.

In making an endorsement before his state’s primary last spring, Ryan said, “I picked who I think is going to be the next president of the United States — I picked Mitt Romney. … The moment is here. The country can be saved. It is not too late to get America back on the right track. … It is not too late to save the American idea.”

Romney was the subject of an April Fools prank in which Ryan played a role. Romney showed up at a supposed campaign event where he heard Ryan calling him “the next president of the United States” — only to find the room nearly empty.

In recent days, conservative pundits have been urging Romney to choose Ryan in large part because of his authorship of a House-backed budget plan that seeks to curb overall spending on benefit programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps.

Republican National Committee finance chairman Ron Weiser of Michigan, said Friday night that Ryan’s selection would help Romney win Wisconsin and its 10 electoral votes in the fall. The state typically supports Democrats in presidential contests, and Obama won it handily four years ago.

Ryan has worked in Washington for much of his adult life, a contrast to Romney, who frequently emphasizes his experience in business.

The congressman worked as an aide in Congress, and also was a speechwriter for Jack Kemp, who years earlier had been one of the driving forces behind across-the-board tax cuts that were at the heart of Ronald Reagan’s winning presidential campaign in 1980.

Ryan is also well-known for his fiendish physical fitness workouts.

His congressional district in southeast Wisconsin has something of a bipartisan voting record. Obama took 54 percent of the vote there in 2008, while the congressman received 64 percent in winning re-election.

Earlier this week, a Ryan adviser said the congressman, his wife and their three children were preparing for a weeklong Colorado vacation.

Romney today kicked off a bus tour through Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio. All are battlegrounds where Obama won in 2008. The four states hold 75 electoral votes of the 270 needed to win election.

With AP