Like the soundly defeated presidential candidate with whom he ran, former Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan appears to struggle when his words aren’t perfectly scripted in advance for him.
Doing his first interview since the ticket on which he ran alongside presidential challenger Mitt Romney lost to the Democratic tandem of President Barack Obama and Joe Biden, Ryan stumbled a bit when asked to explain the election outcome by attributing the defeat to higher-tna-expected Democratic turnout in “urban areas.”
“The surprise was some of the turnout, some of the turnout especially in urban areas, which gave President Obama the big margin to win this race,” the House Budget Committee Chairman said in an interview with WISC-TV. “When we watched Virginia and Ohio coming in, and those ones coming in as tight as they were, and looking like we were going to lose them, that’s when it became clear we weren’t going to win.
Ryan said that he was surprised that he and the former Massachusetts governor did not fare better in the nation’s big cities.
The remarks immediately prompted a strong rebuke from some liberals who viewed Ryan as blaming inner-city minorities for the Republican defeat.
“Paul Ryan emerged from dustbin of nothingness 2 blame his & Romney’s defeat on “urban” vote,” one person tweeted, according to the New York Times. “These 2 losers continue 2 demean minorities.”
Another tweeted that “Urban vote” = minorities. Paul Ryan is saying he lost because minorities actually went out and voted. SHOCKER. MINORITIES HAVE RIGHTS, TOO.”
What Ryan was clearly trying to articulate – but failing – was that the Republican Party failed to foresee that African-American voters would show up at the polls in record numbers again, just like they had in first helping to elect Barack Obama to office four years ago.
Ryan’s comments also ignored the fact that Romney and Ryan also lost some largely rural and largely white states such as New Hampshire and Iowa, losses cannot be explained away by focusing on urban voters.
Or that Latinos, young people and women had also overwhelming voted Democratic.
In the interview with the television station, Ryan said he was shocked by President Obama’s lopsided victory.
“We were surprised at the outcome,” he told WISC-TV. “We knew this was gonna be a close race. We thought we had a very good chance of winning it.”
Ryan discounted any notion that the nation’s voters had somehow rejected his long-standing ideas for how to restructure the nation’s budget and cut spending.
“I don’t think we lost it on those budget issues, especially on Medicare – we clearly didn’t lose it on those issues,” he said.
Ryan is already getting back to work by looking ahead to the looming “fiscal cliff” – a series of tax increases and government spending cuts that will kick into place unless Congress reaches a deal with the White House by the end of the year.
Ryan, however, declined to look ahead to 2016, when he is already being floated as a potential presidential candidate himself.
“I think everybody’s tired of talking about presidential politics,” he said with a laugh, when asked about the White House chatter.
“I am.”
