A Difference in Philosophy': Paul Ryan Gives Epic Speech in Support of Free Enterprise

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan has usually cast himself as the voice of reason in debates. Which is to say that Ryan isn't typically known for raising his voice or getting excited about topics very often, preferring the comfort of impartial statistics to polemical or ideological argumentation.

Yet today, Ryan threw off that image a bit and revealed a surprisingly convincing passionate side, in a speech that had National Review's Robert Costa wondering if Ryan was rehearsing for a Republican National Convention speech. And if he was, could it be the coveted Vice Presidential slot that many are speculating Ryan is a frontrunner to receive?

Ryan certainly sounded grand-scale, Vice Presidential notes in the speech. "We've got to get out of the game of Washington picking winners and losers in the tax code," Ryan exclaimed. "Because what we do is we stifle that entrepreneur who doesn't have connections, but can actually have an idea and make a business and grow. We want to remove those barriers to opportunity. We want to remove those barriers to upward mobility. We want a system of entrepreneurs where we have true, entrepreneurial capitalism, not this crony capitalism."

So does Ryan sound like your kind of Vice President? Watch the speech below and decide for yourself whether Ryan is ready for prime time.