By Don Walker, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel –
DES MOINES, Iowa — Just two days after Mitt Romney selected him to be his vice presidential running mate, Paul Ryan on Monday got a quick introduction into what could be a bruising campaign the rest of the summer and into fall.
Taking part in an Iowa State Fair tradition in which politicians step aboard a small stage at the fair’s Grand Concourse and deliver a 20-minute stump speech, Ryan was met with a small but vocal minority shouting and yelling at him.
While his Republican supporters far outnumbered the dissenters, Ryan had to move quickly to stay on message.
The soapbox is intended to be a place where politicians can make their case, and fairgoers are asked to be civil and respectful.
But that didn’t happen on a sunny and pleasant day at the fair.
Ryan’s speech lasted just over 12 minutes. Seconds after he mounted the stage, two women just a few feet in front of him began shouting at Ryan. Ryan tried to make light of the situation, asking whether there were any Packers fans in the audience and saying the women likely didn’t live in either Iowa or Wisconsin.
An Iowa State Patrol officer later pulled the women out of the audience.
Farther back in the crowd, at least two older men began shouting toward Ryan. They, too, were asked to calm down by a State Patrol officer.
At the fair, Ryan joked that he had been told that President Barack Obama, who is on a three-day tour of Iowa this week, wasn’t scheduled to come to the fair.
“My guess the reason President Obama isn’t making it here from Council Bluffs is because he only knows left turns,” Ryan said.
But on Monday afternoon, the president’s campaign said Obama would visit the fair later Monday night after an appearance in small-town Boone, Iowa.
In his stump speech, Ryan said the Romney-Ryan plan would build a stronger middle class in the country.
“It will get us back to the path of prosperity in this country,” Ryan said.
Ryan outlined ways he said the Romney-Ryan ticket would create 12 million jobs in the United States. He said the country needed to use more of the oil and gas reserves within the nation’s borders; help the country’s workers develop better skills; stop the growth in federal spending; promote free and fair trade; and help small businesses by lowering the corporate income tax.
Obama, Ryan said, has given the country four years of trillion-dollar-plus deficits.
“We don’t have to stand for that. We’re not going to stand for that. And on Nov. 6, we’re going to change that,” Ryan said to loud cheers.
Ryan praised Romney for his business background. He said Romney helped save the Salt Lake City Olympics and, as governor of Massachusetts, balanced a budget without raising taxes, lowered unemployment, and increased household incomes.
Ryan also criticized Obama for changes in welfare reform rules that were first passed by former President Bill Clinton in the ’90s. Work rules for welfare recipients have been relaxed, Ryan said.
“We want to give people a hand up, not handout,” Ryan said.
Ri-i-i-ght… Republicans would never do anything like this, would they? Remember “YOU LIE!”? And this was directed at a sitting president not long ago. Now THAT was STUPID!
That was not heckling, it was the truth. The guy is the biggest lier we have ever had in the White House. I thought Slick Willie was bad but he couldn’t hold a candle to Obama.
Let’s see… Who said “Read my lips; no new taxes!”? Remember that one?
When republicans heckle they do it in the form of questions or as in the example ” you lie”, which at the time they knew but now we all know was true. Democrats yell and scream trying to disrupt and make it so others can’t hear the truth, republicans are more civilized.
To bad Obama’s remark earlier in the day that Ryan was holding up the farm bill didn’t make the news…the fact is the House has passed a farm bill and it is floundering in the Senate!!!! Well, for a President who thinks there are 57 states, why should why should we be amazed that he doesn’t know what the legislature is going?
What a shame some low life Democrats had to shoot off their big mouths in front of the whole country and embarrass our state. It is so typical of STUPID people.