News analysis: Ryan says 'America needs a turnaround'

TAMPA – It is Paul Ryan's party now.

By H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY

Paul Ryan walks to the podium at the Republican National Convention Wednesday night in Tampa.

By H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY

Paul Ryan walks to the podium at the Republican National Convention Wednesday night in Tampa.

The 42-year-old Wisconsin congressman strode on stage at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night to a cheering welcome as he accepted the party's nomination as vice president and signaled the emergence of a more conservative, more combative generation of leaders who are reshaping the Republican Party.

Of course, it is the 65-year-old Romney who will be in the spotlight today at the convention's closing night and during the two-month campaign that follows. The outcome in November will depend on voters' judgment of him and President Obama, not on their running mates.

However, Ryan and the GOP "young guns" he helps lead, boosted by the Tea Party movement, are providing much of the energy in the grass-roots, the enthusiasm in the hall and the ideological stamp that has the GOP ticket playing offense on an issue such as Medicare, long seen by the party establishment as a snare certain to rebound to Democrats' advantage.

"We're a full generation apart, Gov. Romney and I," Ryan said in his speech to laughter. "And in some ways, we're a little different. There are songs on his iPod which I've heard on the campaign bus and on many hotel elevators. He actually urged me to play some of these songs at campaign rallies. I said, 'I hope it's not a deal-breaker, Mitt, but my playlist starts with AC/DC and ends with Zeppelin.' …

"A generation apart. That makes us different, but not in any of the things that matter."

'Where is the debt clock?'

A few hours earlier, Ryan had stopped by the convention hall to check out the stage and test out the teleprompter. By his side were his wife, Janna, their three young children and his older brother, Tobin.

"Where is the debt clock?" Ryan asked, looking around the arena for two digital screens that have been ticking the increase in the national debt since the convention opened. A series of speakers have used them as touchstones. "Oh," he said, spotting one. "It's up there."

The congressman and his family practiced waving to a nearly empty hall, a maneuver they would repeat when the arena was full. Liza, 10, tried to speak into the microphone on the podium. "It's not on," her father advised.

Thursday’s Republican National Convention highlights (all times ET):

7-8 p.m.

Reagan legacy video

Newt and Callista Gingrich

Craig Romney

8-9 p.m.

Former Fla. governor Jeb Bush

Former Romney business associates Grant Bennett and Tom Stemberg

9-10 p.m.

Former Romney state government colleagues

Olympians Michael Eruzione, Derek Parra and Kim Rhode

Surprise speaker

10-11 p.m.

Sen. Marco Rubio, Fla.

Mitt Romney acceptance speech

Convention adjourns

A few hours later, the microphone was on and the hall was jammed. When Ryan spoke, he referred to "the calling of my generation."

That was, he said, "to give our children the America that was given to us, with opportunity for the young and security for the old — and I know that we are ready. Our nominee is sure ready. His whole life has prepared him for this moment: to meet serious challenges in a serious way, without excuses and idle words. After four years of getting the runaround, America needs a turnaround, and the man for the job is Gov. Mitt Romney."

Dressed in a somber black suit and silver-blue tie, Ryan seemed a bit nervous and tentative at the start but spoke with increasing confidence as he continued. At one point, he paid tribute to his mother, Betty Ryan Douglas, 78, who was sitting in the hall, prompting daughter Liza to give him a grin and a thumbs-up sign. By the end of a speech full of urgency over denying Obama a second term, the crowd roared its approval.

Many of the speakers who have sparked the strongest response from the convention audience have been relatively new officeholders, many of them in their 40s, including South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Texas Senate candidate Ted Cruz. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who survived a recall election this year, got a hero's welcome.

They tend to talk less about compromising across party lines to get things done — an argument Romney has made about his tenure as governor of Democratic-dominated Massachusetts — and more about standing firm on principles even when it leads to pitched political warfare.

Cruz called the emerging party "a very exciting transformation" at a USA TODAY Newsmaker session. "One of the reasons Barack Obama got elected is because a lot of Republicans in Washington lost their principles," including exacerbating the federal deficit. "The single best consequence of Republicans getting our teeth kicked in in 2008 is it has produced a new generation of leaders for the Republican Party."

Cruz, 41, noted he was 10 when Ronald Reagan was elected president and 18 when he left the Oval Office. Reagan was the defining president for his generation of Republicans in the same way Franklin Roosevelt was for a generation of Democrats growing up during World War II, he said.

As for influential leaders now, he cited Sarah Palin, the party's vice presidential nominee in 2008. "A great many conservatives look to her judgment, look to her assessment of who will stand for principle," he said.

For McCain, polite applause

If Ryan represented the party's future, the program featured figures from its past.

The party's 2008 presidential nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain received polite applause for a speech that included a call for tougher U.S. action to help democratic protesters in Iran and Syria.

The last two Republican presidents, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, appeared only in a nostalgic video tribute and joint interview that also aired Wednesday. Former vice presidents Dick Cheney and Dan Quayle were absent, though former Bush secretary of State Condoleezza Rice got an enthusiastic reception as she spoke about the need for robust national security policies.

However, the hall didn't seem fully energized until Ryan appeared on stage. While Palin's acceptance speech four years ago was full of defiance and emotion, Ryan's was laced with economic policy and principles — including a goal of generating 12 million new jobs over the next four years — and blasts at Obama's leadership.

"College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life," he said at one point. At another: "None of us should have to settle for the best this administration offers."

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Analysis: Gingrich forces GOP into grueling debate (AP)

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich took a giant step Saturday toward becoming the Republican alternative to Mitt Romney that tea partyers and social conservatives have been seeking for months.

Gingrich's come-from-behind win in the South Carolina primary snatches away the quick and easy way for the GOP to pick its presidential nominee. Only days ago, it seemed that party activists would settle for Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who stirs few passions but who has the looks, money, experience and discipline to make a solid case against President Barack Obama in November.

Now, the party cannot avoid a wrenching and perhaps lengthy nomination fight. It can cast its lot with the establishment's cool embodiment of competence, forged in corporate board rooms, or with the anger-venting champion of in-your-face conservatism and grandiose ideas.

It's soul-searching time for Republicans. It might not be pretty.

Romney still might win the nomination, of course. He carries several advantages into Florida and beyond, and party insiders still consider him the front-runner. And it's conceivable that former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum can battle back and take the anti-Romney title from Gingrich. After all, he bested Gingrich in Iowa and New Hampshire.

But Santorum's third-place finish in South Carolina will doubtlessly prompt some conservative leaders to urge him to step aside and back Gingrich, as Texas Gov. Rick Perry did Thursday.

Even if Santorum revives his campaign in Florida, the fundamental intraparty debate will be the same. Voters associate Gingrich and Santorum with social issues such as abortion, and with unyielding fealty to conservative ideals. That's in contrast to Romney's flexibility and past embraces of legalized abortion, gun control and gay rights.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul will stay in the race, but he factors only tangentially in such discussions. His fans are largely a mix of libertarians, isolationists and pacifists, many of whom will abandon the GOP nominee if it's not the Texas congressman.

Strategically, Romney maintains a big edge in money and organization. He faces a dilemma, however. Gingrich resuscitated his struggling campaign in this state with combative debate performances featuring near-contempt for Obama and the news media. Romney likely would love to choke off that supply by drastically reducing the number of debates.

Ducking Gingrich after losing to him in South Carolina would suggest panic or fear, however, and all four candidates are scheduled to debate Monday in Florida.

Gingrich is benefitting "from the inherent animosity and mistrust GOP primary voters have with mainstream media," said Republican strategist Terry Holt. "Their first instinct is to rebel, and that's what they did. The question is whether he can sustain that anger and build it into a legitimate challenge to the frontrunner."

Gingrich tried to stoke that anger with his victory speech Saturday. He referred repeatedly to "elites" in Washington and New York who don't understand or care about working-class Americans. He decried "the growing anti-religious bigotry of our elites."

Gingrich made $3.1 million in 2010, but he nonetheless is tapping middle-class resentment in ways reminiscent of Sarah Palin. "I articulate the deepest-held values in the American people," he said.

Despite their contrasting personalities, Romney and Gingrich don't differ greatly on policy. Both call for lower taxes, less regulation, ending "Obamacare" and a robust military. They promise to cut spending and increase jobs without offering many details of how they would do so in a divided nation and Congress.

Romney vs. Gingrich in some ways mirrors the Democrats' 2008 choice between Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, which turned mostly on questions of personality, style and biography. The Republicans' choice, however, will plumb deeper veins of emotion and ideology.

Romney appeals to Republicans who want a competent, even-tempered nominee with a track record in business and finance. His backers are willing to overlook his past support of abortion rights and his seeming tone-deafness on money matters — even if it feeds caricatures of him as a tycoon.

Until Saturday, GOP polls had shown Romney easily ahead on the question of who would be Obama's toughest challenger. South Carolina exit polls, however, showed Gingrich with an edge among those who said it was most important that their candidate be able to beat Obama.

Romney will try to regain that advantage in Florida, which votes Jan. 31. It's not clear what strategies will work. In his concession speech Saturday, Romney said Obama has attacked free enterprise and "we cannot defeat that president with a candidate who has joined that very assault on free enterprise."

He was alluding to Gingrich's past criticisms of Romney's record running Bain Capital, a private equity firm. But Gingrich and a friendly super PAC dropped their references to Bain days ago.

Romney hinted at another approach. "Our party can't be led to victory by someone who also has never run a business and never led a state," he said. Gingrich's background didn't seem to bother South Carolina's Republicans, however.

What they've done is steer the primary contest into more emotional, and possibly dangerous, waters. They rewarded a candidate who gave voice to their resentment of the news media, federal bureaucrats and what they see as undeserving welfare recipients and a socialist-leaning president.

Two South Carolina debate moments crystalized Gingrich's rise. Both involved an open disdain for journalists, whether feigned or not.

In Myrtle Beach on Monday, the Martin Luther King holiday, Gingrich acidly told Fox News' Juan Williams that he would teach poor people how to find jobs, and that Obama has put more Americans on food stamps than any other president. Gingrich repeated the food stamp lines in his speech Saturday night.

At Thursday's debate in North Charleston, Gingrich excoriated CNN's John King for raising an ex-wife's claim that Gingrich once asked for an "open marriage," to accommodate his mistress.

Conservatives inside the hall and out seemed to love the tongue-lashing. The details of Marianne Gingrich's allegations, which Gingrich denied almost as an afterthought, seemed to matter much less to voters. That's remarkable in a state whose GOP electorate is nearly two-thirds evangelicals.

Mike McKenna, a Republican strategist, said Gingrich seems to be drawing many people, including tea party activists, who are fairly new to politics. They don't know or care much about Gingrich's legacy of leading the 1994 Republican revolution in Congress, or his subsequently lucrative career as a writer and speaker that sometimes veered from conservative orthodoxies, McKenna said.

Instead, he thinks these voters are reacting emotionally to someone they hope "can take the fight to the president, to the media, to whomever. They are not particularly concerned about what kind of president he will be."

Therein, of course, is the potential peril of a Gingrich candidacy. Along with his verbal fireworks he carries baggage that might give Democrats more to exploit than do Romney's policy flip-flops and record at Bain.

Gingrich's impressive South Carolina victory will force Republicans in Florida and other states to make a hot-or-cool choice.

They can pick the data-driven Harvard MBA grad who smoothed out the Winter Olympics and now runs a by-the-numbers nationwide campaign. Or they can pick the pugnacious firebrand who didn't manage to get his name on the Virginia primary ballot but who wows an angry electorate that can't wait to lay into Obama in debates next fall.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Charles Babington covers politics for The Associated Press.

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Analysis: Romney's play-it-safe strategy at risk (Reuters)

BOSTON (Reuters) – Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is running a disciplined campaign focused on slamming President Barack Obama and promoting his own skills, but pressure could mount for a more aggressive approach as his poll numbers worsen.

This week a trio of opinion surveys showed Romney trailing Texas Governor Rick Perry, who jumped into the 2012 race less than two weeks ago and generated a blaze of mostly favorable publicity.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and venture capitalist, has been the nominal front-runner among Republicans so far, partly reflecting his name recognition after finishing second to John McCain in his 2008 run.

Romney's second White House run, launched in June, has been designed around almost daily attacks on Obama. His campaign appearances have been relatively scarce and balanced by a heavy fund-raising schedule.

"We've stayed focused on talking to people about why Governor Romney is the best alternative to President Obama on the most important issue facing our country: jobs and the economy. That's what this race will be about," said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul.

The Romney campaign issues regular videos on the theme "Obama Isn't Working," which highlights high unemployment. It mocked the president's recent bus trip through the Midwest as a "Magical Misery Tour," complete with tie-dye T-shirts available for a $30 campaign pledge.

Romney has led most polls among the Republican challengers this year, but with numbers well below levels that create a sense of inevitability.

Both Gallup and Public Policy Polling on Wednesday issued national surveys of likely Republican primary voters that showed Rick Perry holding a sizable lead.

"So far he (Romney) has really played it safe. I really think that strategy can't continue with Rick Perry in the race," said Krystal Ball, a Democratic strategist and former Congressional contender in Virginia.

"If Romney is going to stay in the game, he has to take more risks."

TOO EARLY FOR PANIC?

Political scientist Charles Franklin said it was too early for Romney to panic about Perry, but his campaign needs to stay on its toes.

Romney has been polite but distant in talking about Perry. In New Hampshire, this week he termed the Texan "a very effective candidate ... maybe when the field narrows down to two or three we'll spend more time talking about each other."

"So far, the Romney strategy to not be reactive to the 'flavor of the week' is smart. But it's only in hindsight when we know if someone was a flash in the pan or not," said Franklin, a professor at the University of Wisconsin.

Indeed, the 2012 Romney campaign has been shaped by a different dynamic from the wide-open 2008 race: running against an incumbent with low approval ratings who has left many of his previous supporters disappointed.

His strategists believe voters will respond positively to Romney's business pedigree as the polar opposite of Obama.

As the leading moderate among Republican contenders, Romney also might hope that his opponents simply beat each other up.

"My sense is that Romney's strategy is based on the assumption that Bachmann, Perry and others, even Rick Santorum, will fight it out among themselves," said Donna Robinson Divine, professor of government at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.

"Then, Romney will be able to claim that he is focusing on the real issue -- capturing the White House. It has been a sound strategy. Whether he has to change it at this point is unclear."

Divine said the danger is that Romney's campaign could lose control of the message; this week's pro-Perry opinion polls could be the start of such a trend.

The Gallup survey had Perry with 29 percent support among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Romney was at 17 percent, down 6 points from a month ago, with Texas Congressman Ron Paul at 13 percent and Bachmann at 10 percent.

"The polls create a certain narrative that could force Romney to change tactics," said Divine.

As voting in the 2012 primaries draws closer, Romney's campaign might need to acknowledge a shift in the electorate with a sharper tone, said Ball.

In polling, Romney does better among independent leaning Republicans and moderates, but they don't typically vote in big numbers in primaries," she said.

Even compared with 2008, Republican voters are more conservative, largely because of the emergence of the Tea Party that was so influential in the 2010 mid-term elections and in the recent fractious debate over raising the U.S. debt limit.

"I think Mitt Romney really has to do some soul searching about what the Republican party is. at this point in time," Ball said. "The Republicans are looking for someone to get aggressive in attacking Obama."

Ultimately, though, strategists think Romney, who has a large campaign funding warchest, will be ready for hand-to-hand combat if he needs to.

"I suspect if he sees Perry approaching some kind of tipping point, Romney will engage him," said Divine.

(Additional reporting by Jason McLure; editing by Christopher Wilson)

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