From Will Rahn at The Daily Caller, “We will lose a personality contest” says Paul Ryan at The American Spectator & Americans for Tax Reform Newsmaker series. “In a question-and-answer session at the Washington headquarters of Americans for Tax Reform, Ryan said he did not yet have a ‘strong preference’ for the GOP nomination. ‘I want to wait and see what these people are made of and what they’re going to talk about,’ he told a small gathering of reporters. ‘To me, what matters most is somebody that really has conviction in their heart and their mind, these core principles … we can’t just give it to, you know, the next person in line or (have) a personality contest. We will lose a personality contest. We will win an ideas contest, and I want to make sure it’s somebody who really has conviction and articulation of ideas.’”
“Paul Ryan vs. Health Care Spending” by Joseph Lawler at The American Spectator. “House budget chief Paul Ryan restated that the Republican Party intends to produce a budget that ‘shows real leadership on entitlement reform’ this morning at a press breakfast hosted by The American Spectator and Americans for Tax Reform. Criticizing President Obama as ‘deeply unserious’ about fiscal reform, Ryan characterized the difference between Republicans' and Democrats' ideas of fiscal policy as a difference in vision about the role of the government, with the Democrats pursuing a version of European-style social democracy.”