Ryan: Romney can do better than 11.8 percent unemployment
RENO - Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan led a crowd of more than 500 Thursday afternoon in shouting "five more days" and pledged that he and Mitt Romney can "do better than an 11.8 percent unemployment rate" in Nevada.
In a 16-minute rally in the Reno-Sparks Convention Center, Ryan received wave after wave of applause and cheering, a far contrast from his last visit to Northern Nevada in September when he was only politely received.
"We are asking for your votes," said Ryan, a congressman from Wisconsin who was accompanied by his wife, Janna. "Hey, make this the time when America got back on the right track. We don't have to settle for mediocrity or President Obama's best. We can get this economy growing."
He said the election in five days is about more than picking the team that runs America for the next four years. It's about setting the economic policies for the next quarter century.
He said on Day One, Romney will set in motion the process to repeal the Health Care and Affordability Act, referred to by critics as Obamacare. That comment drew the loudest cheers from the all-Republican audience.
If there was anything new in Ryan's statements, then it was his ridicule of President Barack Obama's recent pledge to create a "secretary of business."
"We don't need a new bureaucrat to get this economy growing. We need a new president and his name is Mitt Romney," Ryan said to cheers.
Ryan said the president's 2008 campaign promise of "hope and change" has failed. He welcomed the Democrats who support Obama to cast their ballots for Romney and him.
"The economy is limping along, the growth rate is half of what he promised," Ryan said.
Several audience members said their votes for Romney are based on their disgust about the economy.
"I cannot stand Obama," said Mark Foss, who owns a winter home near Reno in Truckee, Calif. "What we need is fiscal responsibility. I do think Romney will win and the economy will improve."
Reno resident Elke Teles said she grew up in East Germany.
"I have been around socialism and the path he (Obama) is taking is socialism," she said.
Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901.
