ideas-- despite having been offered leadership positions. and then, boom!, they said "you're the chairman of the budget committee." >> brown: he has a reputation as a policy wonk. is that deserved? >> it's earned. ( laughs ) this is a guy who goes to sleep in his office every night when he's there, reading budgets. >> brown: really? >> that's what he does. and he doesn't fall asleep real fast. he reads it. >> brown: in the past several years, ryan's influence as an intellectual leader has grown dramatically and his proposed prescriptions for spending cuts, lower taxes, and changes to medicare and other entitlement programs have drawn passionate praise and equally passionate criticism. in choosing ryan as his running mate, mitt romney has embraced the man and, to an extent that's not fully clear yet, his ideas.

i asked pollster andy kohut about public reaction. >> early polling is a very mixed reaction. gallup does a survey immediately after his announcement and finds 37% positive, 42% negative. we do a survey this past weekend asking people to give us one word descriptions. and we find a so many negative words as positive words. in short, his initial reaction is the least positive of any vice-presidental nominee since dan quayle. >> brown: we're there any particular attributes, whether it's age or policies or whatever that are driving this? >> for republicans, it's words that reflect enthusiasm; he's intelligent, he's enthusiastic, good guy. we agree with him. for democrats, they say he's a phony, he scares, me, too radical, that kind of thing. >> brown: but another of wisconsin's rising national stars, governor scott walker, is

sure that ryan is going to give an important boost to the presidential nominee. >> most voters knew that mitt romney had the skills that made him capable of being a decent president. you look at his private sector experience, the olympics... >> brown: did you say "decent?" >> this is my point. with paul ryan, his experience alone would make him a decent president. with paul ryan on the ticket, not just because he's from wisconsin but because of what he's done nationally-- mitt romney has the courage and the passion to be an exceptional president. >> brown: this afternoon, the junior member of the ticket had a chance to check out the stage and podium, where he'll get a chance to make his case to the nation tonight. >> woodruff: for a preview of that speech and more on how the convention has gone so far, we turn to house majority leader eric cantor. his own state of virginia is one of the of the critical states.

>> woodruff: tell us something about paul ryan we don't know yet? what will we learn in the days to come? >> what i hope the mesh people will see tonight is the real paul ryan. there's been a lot of talk about his being a budget worchg and into the numbers and a bean counter and all of that which is true because he's a true intellect. but i hope they see the man for who he is. he's a real family man. he has a wonderful wife, janna, who in her own right is quit accomplished person. has three beautiful kids. and somebody who can kick back, relax as well, be very intense and passionate about the direction he would like to see this country go. >> woodruff: we know that the vice president of the united states has to be ready to step in, if, god forbid, something were to happen to the president. is he ready to step into the presidency? >> absolute. he's a very interested individual. he is very grounded in roots

that weren't so glamorous coming up in life. the american people will hear his story tonight, how he lost his father and had to work hard and assume hourly wage jobs when he was young. but he was a hard worker. and that shines through today. you be, i really first got to know paul when he and i served on the ways and means committee together. as you know, the tax writing committee. and we used to spend hours talking about tax policy, economic policy, how to grow the economy, how to free up the innovative spirit of this country. and i believe that you're going to hear that tonight and about paul's vision of where we take the country at this pivotal time in our history. >> woodruff: gwen. >> ifill: you and he were considered to be young guns, you called yourselves and a couple of others in the house. but yet the house and congress in jng is not a terribly popular place these days. so how does his background in the house help him in this national race and how does it hurt? >> you know, the house has sort

of been the epicenter of the debate in washington over the last year and a half. as you know, we've had a very different view in terms of how to take this country forward than the president has. and, unfortunately, what we've seen is a president that's been unwilling or not desirous of reaching across the aisle and saying, "look, we can disagree on things. reasonable people can disagree, but let's try and work to find some consensus so that we can produce some results." and i think what you'll see tonight is that side of paul ryan, somebody who is very passionate and convicted in terms of his principles, but understands that we've got to get results for the american people. right now, so many americans are just disappointed at what has been gog, and they're looking for an alternative. and, frankly, i think what you'll see taking out of this week here in tampa is the republican ticket dedicated towards making life work for more americans, and that's the bottom line.

>> woodruff: you know, mr. cantor, republicans often say-- we're hearing it a lot here-- that the president didn't work across the aisle, but when you talk to some democrats they say they think the president tried too hard, and waited too long for republicans to come over in his direction, which they were never going to do. >> well, as one who has had the privilege of not only representing my constituents in and around the richmond area and throughout the seventh district of virginia, as well as serving for majority leader, i can tell you we tried. john boehner, the speaker and i tried continuously, to engage the white house, engage the president, throughout the entire discussioning last year. and, unfortunately, there's just a fundamental disagreement that the president was unwilling to set aside. and i think what people are looking for, at least what i am hearing when i'm traveling in my district and the country, is people want to see the economy improve. they want to see the prospects for themselves, their kids, and

have a better future. they want to have some optimism. and i think paul's going to wring that sunshiny optimism to the crowd tonight and i think the american people are going to see a genuine commitment to do things better and really try to resolve some of these very, very difficult challenges. >> ifill: you're from virginia, a big battled ground state this year. how does the romney-ryan ticket win your home state? >> well, it is very much about jobs and the economy in virginia. virginia is particularly susceptible to the president's defense cuts. as you know, as a result of the failure of the super committee in congress last year, these defense cuts are going to go into effect at the end of this year. >> woodruff: but wasn't that a result of both sides not coming together, sequestration? >> judy, i think what we've done in the house and we've gone ahead and passed a substitution for these kind of defense yuts cut, about the yet there's been no response by the president. we feel very strongly that, number one, we do have to defend our country, and these cuts are

going to cut to the core an ability for to us effect that mission. but also in virginia, and gwen, you ask about virginia, we are disproportionately dependent on defense dollars. in fact, 9% of the employment in the region of hampton roads, virginia beach, is dependent on d.o.d. dollars up and think about the area up around washington and the pentagon and northern virginia, that's going to make a huge difference for virginia and i believe will add to the prospects for a romney-ryan win. >> ifill: it's precisely this kind of standoff that makes so many american voters impatient and look at congress and say a poxspoz all of your houses. how do you win an election this close is when you're doing things or not doing things that exasperate so many americans. >> i think what you can show is there have been no results on the part of this exprt this administration. and you have in mitt romney a

republican governor in probably the most democratic state in massachusetts, someone who said,un what, i can set aside differences and try and find commonality and he produced results. that's going to be the alternate toif what's been going on in washington with the white house that seems to be intransient on these issues. >> woodruff: quickly, president obama was campaigning in virginia today, drew a crowd of 7500, and we know the romney-ryan ticket is going to be in virginia campaigning right after this convention. are they going to draw as many as 7500 people when they campaign in richmond? >> judy, i was with paul and mitt the day that mitt had announced paul in norfolk, and they came to richmond. we had overwhelmingly enthusiastic crowds, just about 10 days another paul was in richmond, i think drew-- i think at least four to five, maybe 6,000 people. i'm confident that there is a lot of enthusiasm at home to try something different, since these policies have been so

disappointing by this white house. >> woodruff: house majority leader eric cantor, thank you so much for being with us. good to see you. >> ifill: thank you. >> ifill: ryan's swift rise has shined a spotlight on wisconsin. we turn to hari sreenivasan at the map center for a closer look at the politics of the badger state. >> sreenivasan: we're taking a look at the story of battleground states through the data that you can find on our web site. with me is nathan gonzalez of the rothen berg political report and roll call, thanks for being with us. >> my pleasure. >> sreenivasan: so much talk about paul ryan and his impact on the overal campaign. e wh wentake w look atta our electoralicality clairt, t yell states are the associated press' predictions on what they think are battleground states, and you say we should make wisconsin yellow. why? >> at the rothen berg political reporter we've hadye wisconsi firmly as one of eight swing states for at leastsi the last x months and i think for a couple of different reasons. one is this is a forgotten swing state.

in 2000, we were talking about florida, the recount, very close, but in wisconsin the race was decided by less than a percentage point. four years later, another close presidential race. we were concerned about ohio, but wisconsin, again, less than a percentage point. fast forward to stayed and i think this is setting up to be a very competitive battleground state and particularly when you add paul ryan on the ballot. then you add the polarization. this is one of the most polarized states in the country, particularly with the recall election of scott walker. >> sreenivasan: we have had a long-term project called listen to me where we hear from voters on what the important issues are and whether they think the political system is broken. here are a couple of the answers from wisconsin. >> i like to be positive but our country is very divided, and it is hard to see how we can possibly unite when we have very conflicting views that don't find a lot of common ground on a regular basis. >> i feel like there's no compromise. like, within our little

microcosm of madison and in big government. i feel like no one is willing ty compromise which is the only thing that's going to move usth forward. >> sreenivasan: let's take a look at the 2008 presidential results. pretty easy to see here whatever went plu went for predesi obama, whatever went red went for john mccain. and this is a fairly blue outcome. >> i think the voters expressed the sentiment of voters until the upper midwest and the country thought at the time, the economy was sagging. the voters didn't like the partisanship. they didn't like the direction of the country and were ready for a change. in 2008, barack obama was the one who captured that sentiment for change, and that's why you see a normally competitive state have so much blue on it. >> sreenivasan: we just fast forward now to the recall results, scott walker with 53%. you see an overwhelming number of these counties are red. >> even though four years separated the two elections, a lot of the dynamics were in

play. people upset with the economy, and continued to give republicans, governor walker be a chance of power in wisconsin. >> sreenivasan: let's talk about the ryan factor here. he's been an incredibly strong candidate for the last six, seven cycles. >> so congressman ryan down in the southern parent of wisconsin hasn't had a competitive race. even though the district is competitive, democrats haven't done a good job of recruiting a good candidate against him. now that he's part of the national ticket it adds to the intensity focus on wisconsin. >> sreenivasan: thanks so much for joining us. if you're at home and want to try this yourself, you can on your desktop or tablet or even your phone. it's at newsed hour.pbs.org. >> woodruff: and with us tonight once again are shields and brooks, that's syndicated columnist mark shields and "new york times" columnist david brooks. gentlemen, we're now into the second full day of the convention about to get under way. what are you hearing? what are-- as you talk to

people, do they feel the first davis a success? and i ask in particular because there is some controversy about how well the keynote speaker did last night. mark, what do you think? >> there is great controversy swirling about, about how well the keynote speaker did. i think david and i were in are in the distinct minority-- >> ifill: chris christie. >> i thought he blew the hinges off the door. i thought he made a very strong case for change, and outlined the kind of change that he would foresee in a republican administration. republican leadership. and-- but there seems to be a majority opinion that in fact chris christie talked more about chris christie and what he had done and new jersey and not enough about mitt romney. and i guess that's the two cases. >> part of the controversy over christie was is he too negative? and the argument is we've had some pretty tough years and he's

offering more toughness, more hard times. is that the country wants to hear? there's lights between us but there is a debt clock and a lot of republicans are saying let's not emphasize debt. let's emphasize growth. some of the reaction was he was too blood, sweat, toil, and tears. >> ifill: i guess that's my question. who is the last president who got elected by emphasizing all the tough choices. >> walter mondale rode to victory. >> ifill: saying we have to raise taxes. and this party praises ronald reaganals the being the great optimist. so maybe this is not what they came to hear. >> thought christie's message was optimistic. he said teachers are not in it for the glory and money. he said seniors are not selfish. i thought it was a tribute to what he felt was the true middle of the voters. but that-- you're right, but isn't it time for some candor? i mean, americans do know that we face choices.

we're not going to face the hot fudge sundae diet lineup of you can eat six hot fudge sundaes and have a 28-inch waist by tuesday. we're going to have to make sacrifice across the word and he's the only figure who said everybody has to sacrifice. >> woodruff: that's my question. election year after election year, and particularly this year it seems to me, voters are saying we're tired of politicians telling us everything is going to be fine. we know there are going to be tough choices required, so what's wrong with doing that. >> we'll see if the electorate is ready for that. in some states they have voted in gubernatorial races voting for guys with cuts. and sometimes for republicans like scott walker. so the question is will the electorate really do that? i thought the reason christie had to say what he did is to lay the predicate for medicare, and paul ryan-- i assume-- is going to talk about that today, say med qair is just an

unsustainable program. and that's only defensible if you can lay lay larger context that we're on an unsustainable path. >> ifill: what was the larger context anne romney was trying to lay last night, and did anybody pick up on it? she clearly was making a pitch to women voters. "i like him. you ought to like him, too, get to know him." did that really resonate. >> not being a woman voter-- >> ifill: really? ! >> i don't even it resonated. i have to say, i mean-- i find her to be an appealing and commanding presence, but i thought her message was quite frankly ineffective, that it did not reveal anything personal about him. it was anecdotally berest of anything interesting. 47 years and there isn't a single story about one funny thing that mitt did. we're assured he had a sense of humor. we were assured the same thing about richard nixon and jimmy carter but we never saw evidence

of it on the public stage. just one other thing on the christie thing, and that is he set the bar a lot higher for mitt romney. i mean, chris christie said, any leader who tells you we're not going to have to have sacrifice for everybody is not an honest leader, he's not being candid with you. that's a predicate for mitt romney to meet tomorrow night a standard that we'll find out whether in fact he is that honest leader. >> i would just say i thought ann romney's speech was not aced as well. the strong point as i said last night, was "the i nol fail." that should have been the core, you may not like him, but he can make a difference, we can govern the country better, and this is the guy who will not fail you. and she should have said he will not fail you. in government and business, he does not allow himself to fail. >> woodruff: does that turn on its ha head this idea that peope have to like a president in order to vote for him? are you saying that the romney campaign has just decided we

know people are not going to warm up to him? >> they still have a zone of privacy around them that, apparently, they're not going to break. she did not break it by giving any personal information, and i think that's a matter of pride and a matter of what they see as propriety and they're just not going to go there and it may come back to hurt them. >> ifill: can i ask about foreign policy? we had vin weber and norm coleman here earlier, foreign policy advisors to the romney campaign and we asked why there wasn't more conversation about foreign policy and they said, oh, well, we have to talk about the economy. this is what the foreign policy adviser said. you would think they would say well, we have something to say. >> national security has always been historically a great republican advantage. it is not now. i mean, barack obama gets the highest marks of any-- 54% approve of his handling of our foreign policy. so that's basically off the table. and, plus, you have in mitt romney and paul ryan, two men with basically no foreign policy national defense credentials.

so talking about it is not their strong suit. >> i think that's good news. we have a foreign policy bipartisan consensus almost in this country. there are differences here and there. but you take the last five years of the bush administration and the three and a half years of the obama administration, you can hardly tell the difference. we have a pretty good consensus on how we want to do things, mostly because we haven't been challenged by anything divisive, like iran. but i think that's a good thing that we actually have a consensus about a few things. >> woodruff: what happened to the sort of continuing assumption that the republican party was the party of national security, that it was democrats who just had to keep on proving their bona fides when it came to keep the country safe. >> a few thousand drone strikes seem to have taken care of that. obama continued and advanced what bush had done. >> and two failed wars, iraq and afghanistan. that certainly tarnished -- and i'll tell you this. it is an indictment of us as a people and of the leaders of

this country that we are not debating and discussing afghanistan. , that there are, tonight, 80,000 americans in peril, in harm's way, and it goes undiscussed and really undebated in this country, and essentially, uncovered. >> ifill: including here. except of course at this table. describe what is at stake the next evening and tomorrow. what does each side-- especially these republicans-- what do they hope to lay out as the theme for tonight and tomorrow night, especially? >> i.r.s. thing condoleezza rice is going to inspire people. the second thing, paul ryan, he's earnest. the difference about paul ryan, republican nominees tend to like the young, glamorous person-- sarah palin, dan quayle, but they don't have weight. paul ryan has that weight. >> ifill: very quick. >> i i think it's still a ticket that needs personal expwraigz personal warmth and i think that's a test for paul ryan

tonight. >> ifill: let's find out what jeff brown thinks about this down on the convention floor where he will be reporting for us all night. here is preview. >> hello from downstairs. the convention theme is, "we can change it." that means we're going to hear about a lot of issues and policy-- health care, foreign affairs, and more. the lineup of speakers includes the man who was this party's nominee last time around, arizona senator john mccain. we're also going to hear from kentucky senator rand paul, and we're going to see a video about his father, ron paul. former secretary of state condoleezza rice will be talking. and of course it all leads up to the main event tonight, which is the speech of the vice preside presidential nominee, paul ryan. back up to you guys. >> well done, jeff, competing with the music. our convention coverage continues online, where we reach beyond the skybox and offer you

an all access pass to events on the floor and around town. we turn again to hari for more on the six-- that's right-- six live stream channels on our website. >> sreenivasan: the multi channel live stream is just that-- always on, and giving you, the viewer choices on how you'd like to see the conventions. on the front door of our web page, we give you up to a half dozen options. choose the "newshour" icon if you'd like all the insight and analysis you've come to expect from the "newshour" politics team. for the first time, the "newshour" is also providing each night's special convention coverage in spanish-- just press the "en espanol" button. if you'd prefer every speech from the convention floor uninterrupted, press the "r.n.c. feed" button. see the view of the convention floor just outside our pbs skybox by selecting the sky cam button. if that's not enough, our newsroom cam shows a behind the scenes look at our production team and workspace throughout the day. and get a delegate's eye-view with our "newshour" hat-cam.

we send one of our staffers to roam the convention floor wearing a hardhat mounted with a camera and a mic for an on-the- ground look at the sights, and sounds of the convention. all that and more is available all the time, any time, on our >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day: hurricane isaac weakened today to a tropical storm, but battered louisiana all day with high winds and downpours. the republican national convention made ready to hear tonight from vice presidential nominee paul ryan. and in afghanistan, a man in an afghan army uniform shot and killed three nato troops. there've been at least a dozen such shootings in the last month. >> ifill: and before we go, an editor's note: the "newshour" lo an important member of its family when novelist robert kotlowitz died this weekend. bob was senior vice president for programming at public station channel 13 in new york city until he retired in 1990. in that capacity, he helped create a half hour news program featuring robert macneil and jim lehrer that went on the air in 1975. the rest, as they say, is

history. we send our sympathy to bob's family. that's the "newshour" for tonight. i'm gwen ifill >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. stay with us. we'll be back in a few minutes on most pbs stations with full coverage of tonight's session of the 2012 republican national convention. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org