By Dave Umhoefer of the Journal Sentinel

Aug. 11, 2012

Democrats leapt Saturday to portray Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan as a defender of the rich whose big ideas for taming the federal budget deficit would fall flat among voters concerned about the future of Medicare and education.

 

"He thinks people can deal with 'the truth,' " Democratic U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore of Milwaukee said of Ryan's budget-cut plan. "We shall see if they can deal with the truth."

 

The state Democratic Party immediately launched an email fundraising campaign urging donors to reject Ryan's "radical tea party politics" and "let the rest of the nation know that Paul Ryan does NOT represent the Wisconsin we know and love."

 

But even some of his rivals said Ryan's youthful energy and reputation as a serious thinker might initially mean a small bump in the polls here for Mitt Romney, whose favorability ratings have been in the net negative all year in Wisconsin in the Marquette University Law School poll.

 

"He's helped the ticket in the likability factor right off the bat," Moore said, comparing Ryan to Romney.

 

Nationally, President Barack Obama's campaign rapid-response team quickly savaged Ryan in a video labeling the Janesville congressman as "the mastermind behind the extreme GOP budget plan" who wants to "end Medicare as we know it."

 

The Obama video featured Romney's voice as he endorsed passage of Ryan's hotly debated "Path to Prosperity" budget proposal, which passed the GOP-controlled House but stalled in the Democratic-run Senate.

 

"There is no question that former Governor Romney now owns the Republican-Ryan budget that puts millionaires ahead of Medicare and the middle class," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement contending Democrats would better protect Medicare.

 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said: "Romney's choice demonstrates that catering to the tea party and the far-right is more important to him that standing up for the middle class."

 

Others, including some union leaders, hammered on the class theme. "If there were ever any doubt that Mitt Romney is not on the side of working people, today's choice of Rep. Paul Ryan as a running mate makes it crystal clear," National SEIU president Mary Kay Henry said in a statement.

 

In Wisconsin, Democrats sought to draw a distinction between Ryan the genial family man and Ryan the national voice for fiscal austerity and deficit control.

 

A moderate Democratic state senator, Tim Cullen from Ryan's hometown of Janesville, questioned Ryan's policies but praised his character. "My immediate reaction is that Gov. Romney picked a terrific individual," said Cullen, who knew Ryan's father and has worked across party lines with Ryan for the past 14 years both inside and outside government.

 

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said Saturday at a news conference that Ryan is "a nice guy, and a good family man, but his vision for the country is wrong." Barrett served in Congress with Ryan.

 

In picking Ryan, Romney is "embracing the flawed economic philosophy of Bush that led to the debt and the deficit," said Barrett, speaking at Obama campaign offices on the city's east side while flanked by cheering Obama volunteers

 

Although it's good to have someone from Wisconsin on the ticket, Barrett said, he thinks voters in the state will be more concerned with the policies of the two parties, and choose Democrats.

 

In the Legislature, Assembly Democratic Leader Peter Barca said he thought Ryan's economic austerity plans would prove harmful on jobs.

 

Democrats here and nationally sought to portray Romney's choice of Ryan as a desperate act of a campaign trailing in Wisconsin and national polls to Obama.

 

A statewide Marquette poll in August found overwhelming support for reducing deficits, but a solid majority against cuts to health care spending, according to Charles Franklin, director of the poll.

 

But Franklin noted that the question was not asked in the context of Ryan or his budget plan. Ryan, in a July Marquette poll of registered state voters, was seen favorably by 36% and unfavorably by 29%, with the rest undecided.

 

Romney's numbers went the other way. He was seen positively by the same percentage as Ryan, but his negative number was 42%, Franklin said.

 

Ryan, said Franklin, "starts this process as an asset to the ticket" because independent voters in the past were more likely to see him favorably than not.

 

Several Democrats on Saturday spoke to the gender gap seen so far in the race.

 

Nationally, Romney trails Obama by large margins in support among women. In Wisconsin, Romney was seen favorably by just 33% of women, and 46% of women viewed him unfavorably, in the July MU poll.

 

Moore said Ryan's budget plan would "shut down the New Deal and the Great Society and really lock American society into trickle-down eco nomics" that will especially hurt women who are struggling.

 

"This pick can't necessarily improve the women gap except for the fact that Paul Ryan is very handsome and charming," Moore said. "At the risk of sounding sexist about it, people do make judgments that are shallow like that."

 

Russ Feingold, the former Wisconsin senator from Janesville, congratulated Ryan but said that "from reining in the excesses of Wall Street, to reforming our disastrous job-killing trade policy, and especially with respect to budget and tax policies, the Republican ticket is the wrong choice."

 

Another congressional Democrat, Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who serves on the House Budget Committee with Ryan, said it wasn't just women who would lose under Ryan.

 

"This choice demonstrates that Mitt Romney is doubling down on an economic agenda that benefits people like Mitt Romney at the expense of the rest of the country - at the expense of middle-class taxpayers, at the expense of seniors on Medicare, and at the expense of vital investments in our kids' education, innovation and American economic competitiveness," Van Hollen said in a statement.

 

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