Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan said that the GOP needs to pick its fights with President Obama wisely during his second term.
Ryan called on Republicans to stick together during Obama’s second term Saturday, arguing that the wildly unpopular party needs to make a greater effort to avoid being painted as the “villain” in the national debate, to work together when possible, and to take their stands on key issues, not every issue.
Ryan said that Obama would attempt to divide the GOP during his second term, and advised them to stick together.
“We can’t get rattled. We won’t play the villain in his morality plays. We have to stay united,” Ryan said at a National Review Institute event. “We have to show that if given the chance, we can govern. We have better ideas.”
Ryan laid out a practical approach to working with Democrats over the next 2-4 years, advising that the GOP add conservative principles to proposals from the left, instead of rejecting them outright.
Ryan also rejected the idea that the GOP is “in the wilderness,” arguing that the right maintained control of the House and most statehouses. However, the presidential loss means, to Ryan, that the GOP needs to re-think their values in light of a changed political climate, reports MSN .
“If we want to promote conservatism, we’ll need to use every tool at our disposal,” Ryan said. “Sometimes, we will have to reject the president’s proposals — that time may come more than once. And sometimes we’ll have to make them better.”
Ryan also said that the Republican’s two goals over the next several years should be “to mitigate bad policies” and “to advance good policy wherever we can.”
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