Ryan: Obama Won 'Fair and Square'

Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan acknowledges that he was shocked when he and presidential nominee Mitt Romney lost last week's election. The Wisconsin congressman says President Barack Obama won fair and square.

In an interview with ABC News being aired Tuesday, Ryan says he does not blame Romney for the campaign's loss as some conservatives have done. He said he thought they had a very good chance of winning Nov. 6.

"We thought we had a very good chance of winning. You know, the polling and the data and all the people who are the smart people who watch this stuff-- they had a pretty optimistic view on the night," Ryan said to ABC. "Going into Boston that day, we felt like we had a pretty darn good chance of winning. So as you can imagine, it was a bit of a shock when we didn't win, but that's just the way these things go."

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He said the campaign focused on the right message and he is proud of the work.

"We wanted to offer specific ideas and solutions rooted in our countrye 's principles, on how to get people back to work and how to fix the debt crisis, strength in our military, and get people going, you know, back to work. And we offered those ideas," he told the network. "We ran the kind of campaign we wanted to run. I'm very proud of the campaign we ran, and it was an absolute honor to be on the ticket with Mitt Romney."

He also had praise for Obama.

"The president deserves kudos for having a fantastic ground game, and the point I'm simply making is he won," Ryan continued. "He won fair and square. He got more votes, and that's the way our system works, and so he ought to be congratulated for that."

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Ryan said he is proud of the campaign he ran with Romney.

The campaign was "exactly the kind of campaign that I would've run had I been on the top of the ticket."

Information from the AP was used in this report.