GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan has close ties to tea party donors and activists who have donated millions to the cause. He is one of a few elected officials who have attended biannual conferences hosted by billionaire conservative philanthropists Charles and David Koch,
The New York Times reported.
He is also long been active with such conservative groups as the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity. His contacts could especially useful to Mitt Romney as he takes on President Barack Obama.
“There’s three guys that we courted for president: Paul Ryan, Mitch Daniels, and Mike Pence,” Matt Kibbe, the president of FreedomWorks, told the Times. “Up until yesterday, there was a 100 percent commitment to fire Obama. There was not a lot of enthusiasm about Romney.”
It was Ryan’s budget plan that put him on the map with the dozens of tea party lawmakers who arrived after the 2010 election. Outside groups also praised the plan.
“Paul was one of the first guys that we looked at and said, ‘Hey, that young guy could be the guy,’ ” Tim Phillips, Americans for Prosperity’s president, told the Times. “And when he put out the budget and defended it, that’s when they said, ‘He could go all the way.’”
Groups that had been doubtful about Romney are now in his corner and Ryan’s selection has fired up the grass-roots and brought in millions of dollars in campaign funds, the Times reported.
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.