Flashback: Paul Ryan vs. Barack Obama, February 2010

Rep. Paul Ryan schools President Obama on the president’s signature legislation, ObamaCare.

The White House is known to loathe Ryan because of his performance in that debate. The breezy president who handed the details of his own signature legislation to Nancy Pelosi got schooled by a young congressman who knew what was in the bill. It was an embarrassing moment for the thin-skinned president and he hasn’t forgotten it.

Paul Ryan is capable of destroying his opponents in a debate without ever coming across as unpleasant. Watch him wreck DNC Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz in March 2010.

The plagiarist Joe Biden doesn’t stand a chance against Paul Ryan.

In a Congress full of peacocks and grifters, Rep. Paul Ryan is a patriot. We were told that Tim Geithner was the only man in America who could understand our fiscal crises, despite the fact that Geither failed to run Turbo Tax properly. Ryan overmatches Geithner in this exchange, from February 2010.

With Ryan on the GOP ticket, the Obama campaign is boxed in on policy and will roll out attack after attack on Ryan. The Obama campaign will wear out the race card. The Obama campaign will wear out the “fairness” card. The Obama campaign will wear out the class warfare card. As I am writing this, the Obama campaign has already called Ryan “radical.” We will see these attacks in ads, in headlines, and even by the paid operatives who post comments on blogs. They cannot beat Romney-Ryan on policy, so they will have to destroy them both personally. The Obama campaign will run the risk of hitting that tipping point beyond which attacks become counterproductive, but they will have no choice. On substance they are already beaten: Mitt Romney is a tower on the private sector, and Paul Ryan is a lion on federal spending. Ryan also brings his Catholic beliefs to the table and can articulate how dangerous Obama’s policies are not just fiscally, but in terms of freedom of faith.

Adding Paul Ryan to the GOP ticket tells us that he is squeaky clean. The Romney campaign has been the best-funded and most detail-oriented of all the campaigns this cycle, on both sides. Ryan getting the nod means he has gotten past an extremely rigorous process.

Adding Ryan to the ticket tells us that the Romney campaign will, as Roger wrote, be about the economy from dawn to dusk. Ryan is an intellectual powerhouse but he is not a bomb-thrower. Ryan is solidly conservative, dynamic, and full of ideas. His wheelhouse is reforming entitlements and undoing the damage that the present administration is doing through excessive out-of-control spending. He may be the best-equipped person in the nation to articulate just how dangerous the president’s policies are, and he can be inspirational even when going wonk on the federal budget. He is courageous like few leaders we have in Washington. Ryan is not the demographic/generational game-changer that a Marco Rubio or Susana Martinez might have been, but his presence on the ticket will keep the campaign’s focus where it belongs, on saving the country from our current president and the fiscal nightmare he has intentionally created. Paul Ryan is an inspired and courageous choice.

Paul Ryan is an intellectual engine. With Paul Ryan on the ticket, America has a real comeback team now.