Paul Ryan, Darling of the Tea Party

Conservative opinion makers in the U.S. supported him for Republican vice president on the presidential ticket in November, becoming increasingly demanding as time went by. The influential conservative news magazine Weekly Standard had supported the Wisconsin representative early on. And the Wall Street Journal also recommended him for that spot.

Mitt Romney appears to have heard that call. On Saturday, the designated nominee for president announced he was choosing the 42-year old rising Republican star as his running mate while they were aboard a battleship.

Overenthusiastically, Romney introduced him as “the next president of the United States, Paul Ryan!”

Ryan went on to praise Romney for the business expertise he showed as CEO of Bain Capital. The Washington Post published the text of Ryan’s speech in which he claimed that Romney had created new jobs and demonstrated that he knew how a free economy was supposed to function.

His statement that the United States was the only nation in the world that had been founded on an ideal drew immediate criticism – and probably not only from within the circle of Obama supporters.

Ryan is the brains behind the Republican budget in Congress. For years, he has been engaged in congressional infighting supporting the party’s prescription for debt reduction and the cure for America’s ailing economy: Less government, lower taxes and radical reform of America’s social safety net. The Wall Street Journal says the Chairman of the House Budget Committee represents “a generational choice about the role of government” to be made in November. Ryan is also considered the darling of the ultra-conservative Tea Party.

With Ryan at his side, Romney will now emphasize the economy in his campaign. Romney and Ryan accuse President Obama of trying to force “European-style socialism” onto the American people and that in so doing has not only increased America’s debt but prevented the economy from quicker recovery after the crisis. At a Republican gathering in Florida, Romney said an unemployment rate exceeding eight percent is proof of that.

Ryan worked as a short order cook and fitness trainer

Unlike Romney, who had his first major role in politics when he was elected Governor of Massachusetts and boasts about his successful business career, Ryan is a creation of Washington, D.C. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1998 at the young age of 28. Prior to that, he had worked as a congressional staffer for a conservative Washington think tank. Politico writes that Ryan’s private sector experience is limited principally to student employment as a short order cook for McDonald’s and as a fitness trainer.

Ryan hails from Janesville in southeastern Wisconsin and still lives there today with his wife and three children. The son of a building contractor, he grew up in relatively sheltered Catholic conditions until the summer of 1986 when he was shocked by the death of his father. Ryan found his father dead in bed from a heart attack. Ryan told New Yorker Magazine he grew up fast after that experience. The young Ryan devoted himself to serious scholastic study. In his free time, he read the works of libertarian philosopher Ayn Rand as well as well as the writings of economists Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises – those thinkers whose philosophies are based on the liberal economics many modern Republicans have embraced.

Ryan completed his degree in economics and politics at Miami of Ohio University and immediately embarked on his meteoric career in Washington. The New York Times has called him one of the Republican Party’s most influential political strategists.

But as Romney’s running mate, he poses some risk as well. The budget plan he shepherded through the House of Representatives in March shows over $5 trillion in social program cuts over the coming decade which will include reductions in the food stamp program and health services for the poor. Taxes will be lowered for everyone – including the wealthiest. The Ryan budget fits perfectly with Barack Obama’s message that choosing Romney will result in devastation of the social safety net

Besides that, a Romney victory would depend on winning over the undecided voters in states like Florida and Ohio. Given that, political science professor Alan Abramowitz of Emory University says, “I don’t think Paul Ryan will help in any way.”