Former vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan signs copies of his new book The Way Forward during a stop at Bookstore1 in Sarasota on Aug. 24.
Almost 200 people packed a bookstore in Sarasota on Sunday night to meet former vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan and get a copy of his new book.
Ryan gave no new hints about whether he will run for president in 2016, but offered a stinging critique of President Barack Obama and offered a prescription of what Republicans need to do to get back in the White House.
“The Electoral College is getting harder to win,” said Ryan, who is a Congressman from Wisconsin. “So as Republicans we need to expand our base.”
One way to do that he said is to work on issues from a conservative perspective that are inclusive but remain part of a principled Republican approach. A big piece of his new book, The Way Forward is about addressing poverty programs. He said 50 years after the war on poverty was begun, poverty rates are the highest they’ve been in a generation.
“I say first let’s take a new approach and let’s measure our success based on outcomes and results,” Ryan said. “Are we getting people out of poverty or not? Instead of measuring it by input, which is how much money we are spending, how many programs we are creating how many people are going on programs.”
During his stop at Bookstore1 in downtown Sarasota, Ryan lamented the “lawlessness” of President Obama, whom he said is skirting the law by relying on executive orders too much. He said Republicans need to win back the Senate to give them more tools to fight the president.
