the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. in this special hour we will take a close look at the man mitt romney has skoed sked to join him on the presidential ticket, paul ryan. romney made the announcement from front of the battleship uss wisconsin. ryan made a name in washington by battling deficits and fighting for cuts in government spending. listen to how mitt romney broke the news. it s an honor to announce my running mate and the next vice president of the united states, paul ryan! his leadership his leadership begins with character and values. paul is a man of tremendous chacter shaped in large part by his early life. paul s father died when he was in high school and that forced him to grow up earlier than any young man should, but paul did with the help of his devoted mother, his brothers and sister, and a supportive community. as he did he internalized the virtues and hard working effort of the midwest. paul ryan works in washington but his
Is this a tacid acknowledgement that things weren t going the way they wanted and they wanted to blow this thing up? mitt romney i will tell you this really likes paul ryan and this is a really important thing in picking a vice president. paul ryan was always mitt romney s favorite. he got to know paul ryan in 2009 and 2010 when started working with house republicans on their initiatives and always thought that paul ryan was a really smart guy and that is part of what is behind this. it was his favorite all along. shepard: no question that president obama s liberal base the very liberal base of his party has not been all together pleased with his presidency and all that he has done. is it fair to say that this could very well energize and unite the republican base so that it might come out and vote in bigger numbers? because that is what they need. oh, no question. and, of course, we have seen over the last couple of weeks conservatives urging the romney campaign to pick paul rya
That is in jeopardy. middle class voters who now all of a sudden look at this and notwait a minute i m hot getting my fair share on tax breaks. romney gave his plan which was very vague. this is specific. they voted on it and passed it. it is a republican plan and romney endorsed it. now, they have it and that is what we will go after. bob beckel, thank you. when it comes to presidential politics the state of wisconsin has not voted republican since 84. mitt romney is looking to change that. we heard the democratic side and we will speak to a veteran republican political consultant. the widely respected ed rollins is with us and why he calls the choice of paul ryan a bold one. that is next on this special edition of the fox report. [ acoustic guitar: slow ]
Radical vision on the country disguised as deficit reduction plan. by gut the very things we need to grow an economy that is little to last, education and training, research and development, our infrastructure, it is a prescription for decline. the president s own budget got zero total votes in the house and senate earlier this year and congressman ryan s plan fail the senate as well 58-41 but did manage to pass the republican controlled house 228-191. and the folks out in iowa are going to hear both sides of this argument one half at a time the day after tomorrow because both the president and mr. ryan are set to campaign there. shepard: peter doocy live in washington. thanks a lot. we will speak with political experts who have a lot of experience running presidential campaigns and ask them what they think about governor romney he s choice of a running mate. the republican strategist and campaign ed rollins and our own democratic strategist and host of the five boc bob beckel co
Talk may be just behe beginning because history tells us the vice presidential candidate traditionally plays the attack dog roll. and congressman ryan already has a record of taplin tanglinh the president. i would submit we can do more and start now. you also said that you you want to take a scalpel to the budget and go through it line by line. we want to give you that scalpel. why not start freezing spending now. we are all representatives of the american people and do town hall meetings and talk to our constituents. the american people are engaged and if you think they want a government takeover of healthcare i would respectfully submit you are not listening to them. a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. shepard: now, that congressman ryan s name is on the ticket the back and forth has the potential to get a lot more heated. bob beckel was the campaign