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Summary Romney has picked Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate for the fall campaign Saturday.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney named Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his vice presidential running mate for the fall campaign Saturday, turning to the architect of a conservative and intensely controversial long-term budget plan to remake Medicare and cut trillions in federal spending.Romney made the announcement in Norfolk, Va., as the newly minted Republican ticket begins a bus tour through four battleground states in as many days.Ryans selection — as well as Romneys own nomination — will be ratified by delegates to the Republican National Convention that begins on Aug. 27 in Tampa, Fla.President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden will be nominated for a second term at the Democratic convention the following week.At 42, Ryan is a generation younger than the 65-year-old Romney.His conservative credentials are highly regarded by fellow Republican House members, while numerous polls found that Romneys own were suspect among the partys core supporters during the primaries of winter and spring.A seventh-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.In turning to Ryan, Romney bypassed other potential running mates without the Wisconsin lawmakers following among rank-and-file conservatives, including Ohio Sen. Rob Portman and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.Republican officials said Romney had spoken with both men.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 states 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.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 Reagans 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.
