His youth, talent, conservative politics excite party leaders
By Craig Gilbert of the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Apr. 25, 2009
Washington - Fifteen years ago, Paul Ryan was moonlighting as a waiter at a Mexican restaurant on Capitol Hill. Today, he's one of his party's most touted young politicians, a GOP point man on the economy and a darling of the conservative movement.
"I have strong opinions, strong ideas," says Ryan, 39, the Janesville congressman whose favorite hobbies include reading budget documents and hunting deer. "But I'm not looking to become some famous conservative movement leader. I just don't see that as my role. That's not my thing. I want to be a policy leader." Ryan's emergence this year can be measured in cable news appearances (20), op-eds in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times (three), and mentions by Dick Cheney as one of the GOP's emerging leaders (two).
Ryan was the keynote speaker in Washington two months ago at the nation's biggest conservative gathering, the Conservative Political Action Conference. He wrote the chief Republican alternative to the Obama budget. His ability to churn out plans and papers, his media skills and his pro-market zeal have thrust him to the vanguard of the party on the economic issues that dominate today's political debate.
"I'm not going to say any Republican is powerful anymore. We don't have powerful Republicans. But there's no one quite in his space," says Vin Weber, a GOP strategist, lobbyist and former Minnesota congressman. "He is not just a potential future majority leader, he's a potential speaker of the House," says Ed Feulner, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation. Cesar Conda, who was Cheney's domestic policy adviser and supervised Ryan as a young Hill staffer, calls him "the most influential elected Republican on economic issues."
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/43705712.html
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