Ryan's hometown backers wait to see how he will change campaign — and vice versa - Washington Post
JANESVILLE, Wis. — Rep. Paul Ryan’s friends and supporters left for the rally five hours early, forming a caravan through the deserted streets of downtown. Some brought high-tech cameras and audio recorders to document the trip. Others packed bullhorns or handmade signs. “A Landmark Day In Our History,” read one, because Ryan had never given a speech quite like this.
The politician they usually referred to by first name only was coming back to Wisconsin as the vice presidential nominee, and more than two dozen people from his home town had decided to make the trip. They planned to drive 90 minutes to Waukesha, where they would wait in line for an hour and stand outside for two more, fighting for position in a crowd of 13,000.
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They had already seen Ryan speak in the last few months at the 4-H Fair, the county picnic and the General Assembly luncheon. They knew most members of his extended family and had memorized parts of his annual speeches about the federal budget. But, this time, what waited down the road felt largely unknown.
“I think we are mostly just curious,” said Jason Mielke, who had helped arrange the trip.
How much would Ryan transform the presidential campaign?
How much would the campaign transform him?
Most people who joined the caravan to Waukesha were core members of the Republican Party in Janesville, but they also knew Ryan outside of politics. There was Mielke, a photographer who had taken Ryan’s family portraits a few days earlier; and Rebecca Ayers, whose family had helped look after Ryan’s grandmother when she was sick; and nearly a dozen others from this town of 60,000 in southern Wisconsin, most of whom had stories about Ryan dating back to a lunch, a run-in at the gym or a high school class.
“Everybody here feels like they know him,” Mielke said, “and that’s true whether you love him or you hate him.”
They considered Ryan a politician built in the mold of Rock County: solid, steadfast, respectful, a mystery to no one. He spoke his mind, and his mind rarely changed. His family had owned a construction business in town since 1884, and most of Ryan’s relatives still lived on the block where they grew up. Ryan’s own house on Courthouse Hill was listed in the registrar of historic places. He liked to bow hunt for deer in the fall, ice fish in the winter and take his kids camping each summer in Colorado. He was a budget hawk married to a tax attorney, a man of fastidious routines who monitored his heart rate during workouts, attended Catholic Mass and rooted for the Packers.
He was Paul.
But now even those who had known him longest wondered if some kind of transformation was at hand. Could a politician famous for his exhaustive PowerPoint presentations speak in inspirational sound bites? Could the man who had polarized Janesville become a unifier of the Republican Party?
“These next few months will have an impact on him, on the city, on the whole country,” Mielke said. “We’re just waiting to see how and what.”
He hoped to find some preliminary answers at the rally in Waukesha.
JANESVILLE, Wis. — Rep. Paul Ryan’s friends and supporters left for the rally five hours early, forming a caravan through the deserted streets of downtown. Some brought high-tech cameras and audio recorders to document the trip. Others packed bullhorns or handmade signs. “A Landmark Day In Our History,” read one, because Ryan had never given a speech quite like this.
The politician they usually referred to by first name only was coming back to Wisconsin as the vice presidential nominee, and more than two dozen people from his home town had decided to make the trip. They planned to drive 90 minutes to Waukesha, where they would wait in line for an hour and stand outside for two more, fighting for position in a crowd of 13,000.
Graphic
Explore the 2012 electoral map and view historical results and demographics
More from PostPolitics
Chris Cillizza THE FIX | Is Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential pick really a game-changer?
Ed O’Keefe The state is the center of the U.S. political universe today as Rep. Ryan heads to the fair and Obama campaigns in Council Bluffs.
Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake THE FIX | By end of Democratic National Convention, we’ll know how smart Romney’s pick was.
They had already seen Ryan speak in the last few months at the 4-H Fair, the county picnic and the General Assembly luncheon. They knew most members of his extended family and had memorized parts of his annual speeches about the federal budget. But, this time, what waited down the road felt largely unknown.
“I think we are mostly just curious,” said Jason Mielke, who had helped arrange the trip.
How much would Ryan transform the presidential campaign?
How much would the campaign transform him?
Most people who joined the caravan to Waukesha were core members of the Republican Party in Janesville, but they also knew Ryan outside of politics. There was Mielke, a photographer who had taken Ryan’s family portraits a few days earlier; and Rebecca Ayers, whose family had helped look after Ryan’s grandmother when she was sick; and nearly a dozen others from this town of 60,000 in southern Wisconsin, most of whom had stories about Ryan dating back to a lunch, a run-in at the gym or a high school class.
“Everybody here feels like they know him,” Mielke said, “and that’s true whether you love him or you hate him.”
They considered Ryan a politician built in the mold of Rock County: solid, steadfast, respectful, a mystery to no one. He spoke his mind, and his mind rarely changed. His family had owned a construction business in town since 1884, and most of Ryan’s relatives still lived on the block where they grew up. Ryan’s own house on Courthouse Hill was listed in the registrar of historic places. He liked to bow hunt for deer in the fall, ice fish in the winter and take his kids camping each summer in Colorado. He was a budget hawk married to a tax attorney, a man of fastidious routines who monitored his heart rate during workouts, attended Catholic Mass and rooted for the Packers.
He was Paul.
But now even those who had known him longest wondered if some kind of transformation was at hand. Could a politician famous for his exhaustive PowerPoint presentations speak in inspirational sound bites? Could the man who had polarized Janesville become a unifier of the Republican Party?
“These next few months will have an impact on him, on the city, on the whole country,” Mielke said. “We’re just waiting to see how and what.”
He hoped to find some preliminary answers at the rally in Waukesha.