TAMPA, Fla. – Party faithful eagerly awaited a late-night speech Wednesday by vice presidential nominee Paul D. Ryan as the Wisconsin congressman prepared for his introduction to the national and world stage at the Republican National Convention.
Ryan was scheduled to speak in the 10 p.m. prime-time hour of the convention, and he was expected to offer a full-throated defense of the tough approach he has taken to federal spending as chairman of the House Budget Committee. Ryan also was expected to discuss details of GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s economic plans.
As sketchy details of the vice presidential candidate’s remarks became available late Wednesday, it appeared that he was assuming the traditional “attack dog” role of the second spot, coining phases almost certain to be echoed along the campaign trail in the months ahead.
“After four years of getting the runaround, America needs a turnaround, and the man for the job is Gov. Mitt Romney,” Ryan said in remarks prepared for delivery.
Romney will help America “meet serious challenges in a serious way, without excuses and idle words,” he added.
The party paid homage to its past at it quadrennial gathering – this one in the Tampa Bay Times Forum – with a video honoring former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, appearing together at the family retreat in Kennebunkport, Maine. The two former presidents praised each other’s service, with the elder Bush citing “integrity” as his son’s greatest attribute and the younger praising his father’s “vision, strategy and calm nerves.”
“Dad and I know what it takes to be president,” Bush the younger said, “and there is no doubt in our minds that Mitt Romney will be a great president.”
But the GOP scheduled some of brightest luminaries to disseminate the Romney-Ryan message in a Wednesday session tagged with a “We Can Build It” theme. They included Arizona Sen. John McCain, the party’s 2008 nominee for president, who received a rousing ovation from the crowd in the packed arena.
“I had hopes once of addressing you under different circumstances. But our fellow Americans had another plan four years ago, and I accept their decision,” McCain said. “I’ve been blessed for so long to play a role in our nation’s affairs that I’m conscious only of the debt I owe America, and I thank you for the honor.”
McCain echoed many of the themes of his 2008 campaign against Democratic nominee Barack Obama and added more as he referred to the ensuing four years. He especially faulted the president on foreign policy in what may have been the most intense focus on international affairs of the entire convention.
“It is said this election will turn on domestic and economic issues,” McCain said. “But what Mitt Romney knows, and what we know, is that our success at home also depends on our leadership in the world.”
He sounded familiar GOP criticism of Obama’s withdrawal timetable from Afghanistan, $1 trillion in military spending cuts, ignorance of human rights violations in Iran, and the president’s refusal to intervene in the situation in Syria.
McCain said Romney will reassert U.S. leadership in world affairs, leading “from the front, not behind.”
“I trust him to know that if America doesn’t lead, our adversaries will, and the world will grow darker, poorer and much more dangerous,” he said. “I trust him to know that an American president always, always, always stands up for the rights, and freedoms, and justice of all people.”
As was the case in Tuesday’s session, speaker after speaker assumed their own attack modes, castigating the president for presiding over an economy they say he promised to fix. One of those was Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, who said “the big government bureaucrats of the Obama administration have set their sights on our way of life.”
“Instead of preserving family farms and ranches, President Obama’s policies are effectively regulating them out of business,” Thune said. “Folks, we won’t be in this situation with Mitt Romney in the White House.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky served as another major speaker Wednesday night, excoriating the president for “lowering America’s expectations not raising them,” for “running from the nation’s problems,” and for managing the nation’s decline.”
He also accused Obama of leading the United States toward the sort of European-style governments now teetering on the economic brink.
“What this administration has in mind for America isn’t a renewal; it’s a great leveling out,” he said. “It wants the kind of government-imposed equality that in a single generation transformed Western Europe from a place where, for centuries, high achievement and discovery and innovation were celebrated and prized, to a place where they have elections about whether people should have to work.”
McConnell devoted some of his remarks to praising Romney as a leader, but mostly to compare him with the president.
“For four years, Americans have waited for the faintest light to flicker at the end of the tunnel. And this president has let them down again and again and again,” McConnell said. “It is time to move on. It is time for a leader who will lead.”
Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who waged a spirited campaign for the GOP nomination and has said he will endorse nobody in the upcoming election, was not given a speaking slot at the convention. But a short video summed up his libertarian philosophies, much to the delight of the substantial number of his vocal supporters at the convention.
Ryan, meanwhile, gave a hint earlier in the day about his speech.
“I think people are going to like what they see because we are offering specific, bold solutions to get people back to work, to get this country back on the right track,” Ryan said in a taped interview with WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee.
Democrats pushed back hard against Ryan, whose budget proposal would dramatically cut many domestic programs and partly privatize Medicare.
Obama’s re-election campaign released a web video calling Ryan a product of a “bygone era,” and spokeswoman Jen Psaki took note of polls showing both Romney and Ryan having relatively low ratings on personal popularity.
She called Romney and Ryan “the two most unpopular presidential nominees and vice presidential nominees in modern history” and added: “They have two days to rebrand who they are, what they stand for.”
Psaki also dismissed the impact of the speech by Romney’s wife, Ann, the night before, saying: “Surrounding yourself with strong women is a great thing, but it doesn’t change your positions.”
New York delegates said they were looking forward to Ryan’s address, but they remained more focused on Mrs. Romney’s speech.
Meanwhile, New York women attending the convention were basking in the glow of potential first lady Ann Romney. They seemed thrilled with her speech, and men said she was the star of the show, as well.
“I connected with her,” said Jennifer Walter, wife of Assemblyman Ray Walter of Amherst. “As a wife, as a mother, she really made a connection.”
Chautauqua County Executive Greg Edwards said Ann Romney went a long way toward countering the Obama campaign ads that the GOP says offer a false and damning portrait of its presidential nominee. “He’s not what he’s been portrayed to be,” and Mrs. Romney showed that, Edwards said, adding: “Hers was the most powerful speech of all.”
Other scheduled speakers Wednesday included Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state in the second Bus administration; former GOP presidential candidates Tim Pawlenty and Mike Huckabee; and Susana Martinez, the governor of New Mexico who’s regarded as a rising star in the party.
News wire services contributed to this report.
