Paul Ryan's Final Pitch: 'Let's Get It Done!'
VIENNA TOWNSHIP -- His voice was hoarse; his remarks starting at 9:30 p.m.and lasting just 20 minutes, perhaps the result of campaign fatigue or in deference to the crowd of 1,500 partisans standing for hours inside Winner Aviation’s hangar at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport on a cold November night.
“We need serious leadership and with Mitt Romney, in one day we will get serious leadership,” Paul Ryan began, the Republican vice presidential candidate’s campaign plane and huge American and Ohio flags serving as the backdrop for his final campaign stop in the Mahoning Valley.
The congressman from Wisconsin, who fly would home for a midnight rally when his remarks here concluded, told of momentum swinging undecided voters to the Republican Party ticket in the final weeks of the presidential campaign.
“They understand we need real change on Day One,” Ryan said.
Voters also understand the founding principle of the nation – liberty, he said, “religious liberty” and “economic liberty” among them.
Ryan referenced Romney’s “Five Point Plan” to jump-start the nation’s economy, describing the tenets as “real reform for real recovery.”
“We don’t have to settle for what we have right now.”
“This isn’t working and in one more day we can fix this mess in Washington,” he said to loud cheers as the crowd began to chant, “One more day! One more day!”
Ryan compared the economic plight of his hometown, Janesville, Wis, to Youngstown. “President Obama can’t run on his record,” he said, which is why he’s dividing and demeaning his opponents.
And tRyan seized on Obama’s comment Friday in Springfield that “voting is the best revenge.”
The president was responding to the crowd booing his mention of Romney and the Republicans. “No, no, no -- don’t boo, vote! Vote!” Obama said. “Voting is the best revenge.”
“Revenge against whom?” Ryan asked.
“We’re asking for your vote out of love for our country,” he said, prompting more chants: “USA, USA, USA!”
The vice presidential candidate took notice of the cold night, how hard those gathered had worked for the Republican ticket, and how much he appreciated their efforts.
“This is a unique time,” he said.
“Mitt Romney is a man who fixes things.” He worked across the political aisle while governor of Massachusetts and never demeaned his opponents. “This man led and that’s what we need – serious leadership,” Ryan said.
He concluded by reminding Ohioans “everybody is watching you … your vote matters so much.”
“We are not going to try to transform this country into something it was not intended to be” according to the founding principles,” Ryan said.
“We can get this thing on the right track.”
“Let’s get it done.”
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Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.