From underpaid Capitol Hill staffer to vice presidential nominee in two decades.
By Washington standards, that ain't bad.
Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan's rise had been turning heads long before he was announced Saturday as Mitt Romney's running mate. His biography and evolution as a conservative standard-bearer now enter Republican Party history.
Far from the "extreme" ideologue that Democrats try to portray him as, though, the 42-year-old lawmaker has charted a career marked by an approach members of both parties described, in less partisan times, as "serious." Though not afraid to fight on the stump, Ryan's studious and reserved brand of policymaking is one that almost seems anachronistic in an era marked by pin-drop fights over everything but issues.
"The beauty about the guy is he really is who he's advertised as," Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, who was Ryan's boss in the 1990s during his Senate days, told Fox News.
Ryan's story started in Janesville, Wis., and never really left. He was born in the southern Wisconsin city in 1970 and has lived there ever since.
Romney cited those roots in introducing his choice Saturday morning in Norfolk, Va. "Paul is a man of tremendous character shaped in large part by his early life," Romney said.
The congressman's father died of a heart attack when the young Paul was still in high school. Paul once recalled in an interview with The New Yorker how he found his father dead in his bed.
Via: Fox News
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