Vice president paul ryan biography agent

The implosion of the Newt Gingrich presidential campaign—the first implosion, before the weird resurrection and inevitable second implosion—came because he used four words: right-wing social engineering. He used the phrase, last May, to describe the Republican budget designed by GOP icon Paul Ryan. It was as if he had urinated on Ronald Reagan’s grave. Party leaders rounded on him. In Iowa, an angry voter cornered him and fumed, in a video captured by Fox News that quickly went viral, “What you did to Paul Ryan was unforgivable … You’re an embarrassment.” Gingrich quickly apologized to Ryan, pledged his fealty to the document, and then, lending his confession an extracted-at-NKVD-gunpoint ­flavor, announced, “Any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood.” It was no use: Despite years of diligent service, his support among Republicans collapsed, his fellow partisans holding him in the low regard ordinarily reserved for liberals.

Ryan’s rise occurred so rapidly that an old hand like Gingrich hadn’t yet fully grasped the fact that he had become unassailable, though most (and, by now, virtually all) of his fellow Republicans had. Ryan’s prestige explains, among other things, the equanimity with which movement conservatives have reluctantly accepted the heresies of Mitt Romney. They may not have an ideal candidate, but they believe Romney could not challenge Ryan even if he so desired.

“Now, we are truly at an inflection point, between the Barack Obama and Paul Ryan approaches to government,” National Review editor Rich Lowry wrote recently, treating the elevation of the chairman of the House Budget Committee over the presidential nominee as his party’s standard-bearer as so obvious it requires no explanation. “We don’t need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget,” says anti-tax enforcer Grover Norquist. “Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle

At 45 years, Republican Paul Ryan is the youngest Speaker of the US House of Representatives, second in line of the president, the first hailing from the mid-western state of Wisconsin and probably the first one who did not want the job.

But it speaks to Ryan’s sense of duty and loyalty to his embattled party that he finally, after a lot of soul-searching, accepted being dragged to the gavel.

The reason is simple. No one else among the deeply divided Republicans in the House was willing to step out of the trenches and become the new leader. Ryan’s political “friends” seemed to be happy fighting against each other and forgetting about the people’s business.

When, after the surprise resignation of the hapless John Boehner in late September and the ensuing chaos within the Republican ranks, the party leadership scrambled to find a successor, Ryan’s name almost naturally came up.

Ryan was seen by many as the only viable replacement and the only possible bridge between the establishment and the hardline conservatives who had just successfully pushed Boehner out.

Initially, Ryan demurred saying several times that he was not at all interested in the job and that he wanted to spend more time with his young family. But then he gave in.

What followed was an audible sigh of relief inside the Republican majority. Ryan is popular among his colleagues, known for his intense workouts in the House gym and his disciplined, wonky enthusiasm for fiscal policy.

Despite his young age, Ryan is one the most experienced members of the Republican House caucus. He was elected nine times since 1998 and over the years emerged as his party’s most senior budget negotiator, the perfect “numbers guy”.

Yet, the American public remembers Ryan especially for being at times overwhelmed by the high-energy performance of a condescending grand uncle-like Joe Biden in the 2012 vice presidential debate.