Paul Ryan didn’t disappoint last night with his speech to the GOP Convention. He came across as young, smart, and ready to lead. He had so many great lines, but probably the key was this about Medicare:
“Mitt Romney and I know the difference between protecting a program and raiding it. Ladies and gentlemen, our nation needs this debate. We want this debate. We will win this debate.”
This is what the other side doesn’t get. We have to save Medicare for future generations, not pretend that it isn’t going broke. Because as much as the left would have you believe that we don’t want this program at all, we in fact, want to save it. As Paul Ryan said last night, “We have responsibilities, one to another – we do not each face the world alone. And the greatest of all responsibilities is that of the strong to protect the weak. The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.” Conservatives believe that, not only about the unborn, but about our elderly as well. For too long we have allowed fraud, abuse, and wasteful spending drown us in debt, instead of focusing on only those who truly cannot defend or care for themselves. Conservatives do a much better job at this in private giving than liberals, but it’s time to fix the system in our government. No one wants to get rid of it.
But the best line of Ryan’s speech had to be this: “College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.”
It was perfect. It illustrated how disappointing this Presidency has been for young people, and how the jobs just aren’t there for the graduates that had been so excited about Obama in 2008. This is what Ryan promised;
“The right that makes all the difference now is the right to choose our own leaders. You are entitled to the clearest possible choice because the time for choosing is drawing near. So here is our pledge. We will not duck the tough issues – we will lead. We will not spend four years blaming others – we will take responsibility. We will not try to replace our founding principles, we will reapply our founding principles. The work ahead will be hard. These times demand the best of us – all of us, but we can do this. Together, we can do this.”
Here is Ryan’s speech in full.
As a side note, many reporters are latching on to Ryan attacking Obama for ignoring the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles debt commission, writing that Ryan himself voted against Simpson-Bowles, but what they fail to point out is that it was because he offered his own detailed plan.
Let’s back track though to what was as good of a speech as Ryan’s, if not better. Condi Rice’s speech. To say Condi Rice, former Sec of State under Pres. Bush, knocked it out of the park, would be an understatement of gigantic proportions. She was amazing. The crowd clearly loved her.
My favorite part is where she called trapping our children in failed schools as the “civil rights issue of our time.” I could not agree more. Many in politics try to divide us by race, but the so called “black leaders” refuse to face the issue that is most affecting black and Hispanic children in a negative way. We need school choice, and the Democrats need to stop pandering to the teacher’s unions and stop fighting us on this.
She was pretty harsh on Obama, saying he was “leading from behind.” She also said, “A President Romney would understand American exceptionalism,”
On foreign policy she was harsh as well: “No one says we should be treating Syria as if it needs American boots on the ground,” but there should be a “clear message that gets over the objections of the Russians and the Chinese. When the United States says Assad must go and then nothing happens to make Assad go, the U.S. has a credibility problem.”
I have been wondering for a while how we our just ignoring the literal slaughter of innocents in Syria for so long. I know that neither side seems to care, but I just don’t see how we can sit by and allow this horror to continue. Rice said that we should be arming the Syrian opposition and have a political plan to help them. I agree.
Here is the video of Condi’s speech.
Last two things. Gov. Pawlenty hit the nail with this one in his speech. “Pres. Obama is like a big tattoo. It seemed cool when we were young. But later on, that decision doesn’t look so good, and you wonder…”what was I thinking???” Perfect. And I can’t leave out Gov. of New Mexico, Susana Martinez’s speech. She began with “En America, todo es posible.” (In America, everything is possible). She talked about how she used to be a Democrat until she had lunch with local GOP officials in 1996, and they convinced her otherwise. She says she got back in the car with her husband, turned to him and said, “I’ll be damned, we’re Republicans.” I loved that.
Yesterday I forgot to add a link to the two speeches you cannot miss. Here is the link to the Artur Davis speech, and here is the link to Mia Love’s speech.
The left and the media love to portray the GOP as anti woman and anti minority. We in the party know how much of a lie that is. But the last two nights of the GOP Convention has really proven that we are the party of the strong conservative woman and minority. We are the party that doesn’t use race or gender to divide us, but to celebrate us.