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VP Candidate Paul Ryan speaks to Values Voters in DC

Republican Vice Presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan spoke this morning at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC this morning.  The gathering is the premiere assembly of social conservatives in the nation.  Mason Votes was on hand to cover the speech.

Ryan spoke on a number of topics and they weren’t limited to social issues like abortion or gay marriage.  What made headlines was his words on the American embassy attacks this week that left four U.S. workers killed, including the Ambassador to Libya.  He said, “We know who we are dealing with in these attacks.  They are extremists who operate by violence and intimidation.  And the least equivocation or mixed signal only makes them bolder.”  He further declared, “American foreign policy needs moral clarity and firmness of purpose.”

Ryan then shifted to a major line of attack on the President’s record regarding the economy.  “The Obama agenda failed not because it was stopped, but because it was passed.”  He pointed out the amid all the talk of Mitt Romney leaving out certain words or topics from his convention speech, President Obama left out the words ‘unemployment’, ‘record’, and ‘recovery’.  Ryan slammed Obama for a failure to keep his promises saying, “If Barack Obama’s promises weren’t good then [2008], what good are they now?”

The main meat of the Ryan address was debunking what he called the President’s “straw man arguments”.  He said of Obama, “No one is better at rebuking nonexistent opinions.”  On the President’s promise to bring the poverty rate down, Ryan argued that, “After four years…just about every segment of society is worse off.”  Ryan also rebuked the line from the DNC that “government is the only thing we all belong to” by saying that during his seven swearing ins to Congress he never swore an oath to the government, he swore it to, “support and defend the Constitution of the United States under which government is limited and people are sovereign.”  Ryan also maintained his strong pro-life stance as well as attacking Obama for his support of abortion.

Ryan did have to contend with two separate interruptions from liberal protesters.  Each time, Ryan seemed to brush it off and the crowd chanted the protesters down.

Ryan finished by citing that a majority of Americans believe we’re on the wrong path.  His solution is to point out “there’s an exit up ahead and it’s marked: November 6, 2012.”

You can watch the full speech HERE.

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About Curtis Kalin

Student at George Mason University, Conservative Political Writer, Worked on Capitol Hill, St. Louis native and sports fan.

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