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‘We Won’t Play the Villain’: Paul Ryan Warns GOP to Pick Its Battles

Jan. 27, 2013 5:00am Mytheos Holt

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Paul Ryan said Saturday that Republicans need to stick together and pick their fights during President Barack Obama’s second term, rejecting some White House proposals outright and trying to infuse others with conservative principles.

In a speech to conservatives, the GOP’s 2012 vice presidential nominee said Obama would attempt to divide Republicans but that the party must avoid internal squabbles as it seeks to rebound from a second straight presidential loss.

“We can’t get rattled. We won’t play the villain in his morality plays. We have to stay united,” Ryan said at the National Review Institute event. “We have to show that if given the chance, we can govern. We have better ideas.”

The Wisconsin congressman outlined a pragmatic approach for a party dealing with last November’s election defeats and trying to determine whether to oppose Obama’s agenda at every turn or shape his proposals with conservative principles.

With a surging minority population altering the electorate, Republican leaders have discussed the need to attract more women and Hispanics while at the same time standing firm to the values that unite conservatives.

The party’s future was a major theme during the three-day meeting of conservatives activists, who expected to hear from Govs. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Bob McDonnell of Virginia, and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

Ryan rejected the notion that Republicans were “in the wilderness,” noting that the party controls the House and most statehouses. But he said Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney meant that Republicans would need to recalibrate their approach to deal with the new political realities.

“If we want to promote conservatism, we’ll need to use every tool at our disposal,” Ryan said. “Sometimes, we will have to reject the president’s proposals – that time may come more than once. And sometimes we’ll have to make them better.” He said Republicans should have two main goals for the next four years, namely “to mitigate bad policies” and “to advance good policy wherever we can.”

Ryan acknowledged that “we all didn’t see eye to eye” on the recent “fiscal cliff” vote to deal with a combination of spending cuts and higher taxes that were set to take effect at the start of the year. He defended his support for the bill, saying it was the only way to avoid sweeping tax increases and prevent the economy from going into a free-fall.

As chairman of the House Budget Committee, Ryan said Republicans needed to guard against a debt crisis for the country that would undermine the economy. He said he would promote changes to Medicare and Medicaid and would propose a budget “that will balance and pay down the debt.”

But November’s election results still linger. Ryan said he was “disappointed” by the outcome, saying he was “looking forward to taking on the big challenges” while living at the vice president’s residence. “My kids were looking forward to having a pool,” he joked.

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Comments (19)

tharpdevenport
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 11:16am
With all due respct, Mr. Ryan, unless you can stop the unlimited quantitve easing, the borrowing of money from other countries until the point we are borrwing over $3.5 trillion A DAY, and the near explosion of inflation from artificially low rates, the U.S. is not off of the fiscal cliff.

All you did was agree to stick it to job creators and promote class warefare, not matter what you intention may have been. The road to Hell is paved with good intention, after all. No one means to pave their way straight into Hell, it just osrt of happens one Obamabrick at a time.

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BBBwyo
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 10:28am
Reading the posts I see why the conservatives and republicans can not pull their heads out of their asses. You stupid ass people bicker like old ladies. Mr. Ryan is trying his best, the american people keep re-electing the same “F” ed up politicians. 16% approval rating!!! We should have one common goal; that is to instill conservative principles into politics not liberal. Help our country and help conservitave politicians. Help by not patronizing the Mass liberal media.

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ivanvivian
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 9:28am
Ryan: “We will not play the villian”. Spoken like a true politician, especially a Panda to DEMONcrat Party one!

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Daddymac10
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 3:08am
This is coming from the same guy who just voted to raise the debt limit again. If he’s thinking about running for president 2016, good luck. I’ll never ever support a sellout…

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waspanglosaxon
Posted on January 27, 2013 at 10:41pm
Public letter to Paul Ryan: Conservatism does not mean gutting Social Security, continually kissing Israel’s behind and opening the floodgates to the brown hordes from south of the border in the hopes that some of them may someday vote Republican.
Try these REAL conservative principles on for size: (1.) Deport every illegal alien in America right now, (2.) Protect Social Security and cut welfare, (3.) End affirmative action, ‘hate crime’ laws and all other anti-Caucasian laws now, (4.) Neutrality in the Middle East, (5.) No income tax for working people via a $30,000 personal deduction for every citizen.
Granting special privileges to Blacks, Hispanics, Zionists et al is not going to make them vote Republican. History has shown us this time after time. The GOP needs to support the White population base that supports it. Quit being ‘The Stupid Party’.

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- Trigus
  Posted on January 27, 2013 at 11:38pm
  Is there a recall in Wisconsin for Paul Ryan?
  
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Lar5
Posted on January 27, 2013 at 6:28pm
Paul Ryan is for destruction of jobs, the middle class and our social structure to increase profits and the price of companies stock in effect making the rich richer with little or no paying forward. What a wonderful and proud achievement. The end result….a two class society of haves and have not’s . The American dream is in shambles. The major victims will be the mostly white, hard working middle class people of the tea party who unknowingly are cutting their own throats.

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- db321
  Posted on January 27, 2013 at 9:58pm
  I now see why Romney lost. Ryan you had me fooled, so I suggest you stop being the voice for Conservatives. You simply don’t have the Compassion it takes.
  
  I am looking for a Conservative Candidate who does not think the US Tax payers should be paying $80,000 a year to pay just one annual welfare recipient of $12,000.
  
  This candidate must agree to never cut a single penny from the little old lady’s, that cant work, Welfare Check of $12,000 a year. Look dumb a$$! We are spending $80,000 to pay $12,000. Can anyone see that. Does anyone get it. Did Reagan take this secret to the grave with him.
  
  Can anyone see that the Devil in Big Govt is the Waste – There’s your Demon, Waste and Fraud.
  
  Any Conservative that mentions the words “Welfare Reform” with out mentioning cuts in Govt first does not love this country and we should not be supporting him/her.
  
  Every time, I heard Reagan speak while I was in College, he always talked about cutting the Waste in Govt and the amount of money it was costing us to administer Welfare. The problem is most Conservatives were two young to see how Regan Demonized Waste and told us that We Are A Country that has the ability to help those that can’t help themselves. I changed from being a Liberal to voting Conservative after hearing one Reagan Speech.
  
  Rush, Shawn and Glenn who couldn’t sharpen a pencil to save America’s lives, all they know how to do is push Granny off the clift.
  
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- db321
  Posted on January 27, 2013 at 10:23pm
  Case and Point – has Glenn, Rush or Shawn ever told us how many Obama phones were passed out before the election? Even if they did, I don’t care! If the Law allows the US to give people Emergency access to people in certain areas, then so be it. HOWEVER, I feel I am the only one that has a real big problem with the fact that its costing $200 a month per 10 Million Obama Phones to administer it.
  
  Who is the demon in Obama Phones – 10 million Obama Phones or $200 a month per phone. I would say, that any 5th grader, could do the math, and march down to Walmart and cut it down to $25 a month per phone.
  
  You see Waste and Fraud in our Govt is a bigger enemy of America than Obama. If we could learn to demonize waste and Fraud, then we would even have Liberal even jumping on board. Reagan did, and he had the largest Welfare support of all President before or after. How we soon forget.
  
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- tharpdevenport
  Posted on January 29, 2013 at 4:13pm
  I rmember saying here at The Blaze in a commentary section of a news story after Ryan was picked as VP runner, that Iwas taking bets on how long it would take before Romney turned him toward the mushside, or we lost Ryan.
  
  Now, like Newt and Pelosi on the coach in that commerial, we have Rubio and McCain in the smae room working on another screw job for the American people under the guise of course positive pretences. Just a couple week ago I told somebody I wasworried about Rubio and that he would do something like this with amnesty. I was right. :-(
  
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truthnstuff
Posted on January 27, 2013 at 6:09pm
Ryan, you’re a sellout trying to pander to the left by playing nice and cozy. While you play you’re silly look at me smile photo ops, they will knock your teeth out. The GOP is a sellout bunch of wimps.

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HELPUSSAVEAMERICA
Posted on January 27, 2013 at 6:00pm
Paul is right, he’s one of the best. Too bad he signed up with Mitt Romney in 2012, he deserved better. And if Mitt didn’t want to be President, he should not have run.

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YOURSENSEI
Posted on January 27, 2013 at 4:21pm
This is what you must know:

If given the chance? Sorry, you had your chance. Thanks anyway, but we liberals, we’ll keep the power. You can have the outrage. After all, we should all play to our strengths.

It is so.
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- justangry
  Posted on January 27, 2013 at 7:01pm
  Is what we’re seeing from the “liberal” leadership reflect your values? You know the bombing kids and taking away our rights, bailing out their rich “green” and banker buddies, etc? Seems liberal leaders have sold you all out as much as conservative leaders have sold us out.
  
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Rowgue
Posted on January 27, 2013 at 4:13pm
You’re never going to win a PR battle against people that have the entire government and media propaganda machine behind them.

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myptofvu
Posted on January 27, 2013 at 3:59pm
Hey Ryan!!!! why don’t you do what you’re supposed to do and represent the people that elected you, make your actions conform to their wishes and not your own.

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48Straights
Posted on January 27, 2013 at 3:28pm
Much better a better man than Sponge Bob Square Pants Bohener crying with joy as he brings everything Obama wants to him on a silver platter and more!

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neverending
Posted on January 27, 2013 at 2:18pm
Paul Ryan gets it and glad to see him speaking out. More speaking out he will do as he is going to be the keynote speaker at Campaign for life – how cool is that?

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- YOURSENSEI
  Posted on January 27, 2013 at 4:23pm
  Mr or Ms NEVERENDING,
  
  This is what you must know:
  
  Didn’t hear enough from Ryan during the campaign, eh? You’re right, by all means. Let’s hear more from him. More real Americans need to be reminded just how insane conservatives are. My question – when is the next set of beefcake pics coming out. Oh swoon!
  
  It is so.

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