- Mitt Romney and the GOP in Tampa: How Low Will They Go?
- 23 Numbers to Know About the Conventions
- Will a Hurricane Ruin the GOP’s Big Bash?
- Video: Herman Cain Goes Off
- At Anti-Abortion Bash, Todd Akin Is a Hero
- Gay Republicans Optimistic in Tampa
See our full coverage of the 2012 Republican National Convention.
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has railed against the Washington political class and pitched his outsider status as a selling point. Romney hit on this theme in May when he said that “someone who’s never spent a day in the private sector, like President Obama, simply doesn’t understand” the economy and how jobs are created. Romney’s in line with much of the tea-partyized GOP, which hails a lack of experience in Washington as a virtue.
Yet Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Mitt Romney’s pick for vice president, has worked in Washington nearly all of his adult life. He did stints at a conservative think tank and as a staffer for Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas). He first ran for Congress at the tender age of 28.
In fact, Ryan is such a Washington insider that his own brother, Tobin, describes him as a “career politician.” And Tobin Ryan doesn’t mean that as a compliment.
Here’s Tobin Ryan calling his brother a “career politician” on Fox News Wednesday morning at the GOP convention site in Tampa, Florida, in a video clip that has received little notice:
Transcript:
Megyn Kelly: Let’s get to know him. He’s from Wisconsin. He’s married. How many kids?
Tobin Ryan: He has three kids.
Kelly: How old are they?
Ryan: They are 10, 8, and 7.
Kelly: Lifelong politician? I mean, 28 years old, he runs for Congress, been there 14 years.
Ryan: You know, it sounds like that. I never actually thought he was going to be a career politician. And I kept expecting him to come back and start a real job.
So Ryan’s brother sees him as a Washington guy who hasn’t held a “real job.” But don’t expect this to stop the Republicans from denigrating Obama and other foes as career politicians. It’s too good a talking point to subject to the test of reality.
