Paul Ryan, Mitt RomneyGetty Images
Paul Ryan, Getty Images
Paul Ryan, Getty Images
Courtesy: Getty Images
Paul Ryan, Getty Images
Norfolk, Va. -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has selected Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan to be his running mate.
The candidate made his announcement to supporters via a phone app, saying "Mitt's Choice for VP is Paul Ryan." The GOP ticket appeared together for the first time just after 9 a.m. in Norfolk, Va.
After the biggest moment of the tour, naming his vice-presidential candidate, Romney and Ryan took off on a four-day bus tour that will take them to as many states, including North Carolina.
At 42, Ryan is a generation younger than the 65-year-old Romney. Ryan, 42, is best known as the chairman of the House Budget Committee and author of a dramatic plan to overhaul Medicare, the government-run health insurance program for senior citizens.
In an interview on Thursday, Romney said he was looking for someone with "a strength of character" and "a vision for the country that adds something to the political discourse about the direction of the country."
With Ryan as his running mate, Romney appears ready to have a national conversation about federal spending and the growth of entitlements with one of the GOP's leading budget authorities at his side.
Ryan, a House member since 1999, has proposed to overhaul both Medicare and Medicaid, the programs that have been a hallmark of the nation's compact to provide health care to senior citizens and the poor. Under his plan, Medicare would be run by private insurers while Medicaid would be turned over to the states.
His goal, he said, was to leave "a debt-free nation" to the next generation. "At stake is America," he said last year.
Ryan's budget plan has been widely criticized by President Obama and his fellow Democrats, who contend it would "end Medicare as we know it." Obama has called Ryan's plan "thinly veiled social Darwinism."
With much speculation focused on Ohio Sen. Rob Portman and ex-Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, the 42-year-old Ryan got a big boost from conservatives this week.
The Wall Street Journal, whose editorial page holds sway among conservatives, said choosing Ryan would underscore "the nature and stakes of this election."
"More than any other politician, the House Budget Chairman has defined those stakes well as a generational choice about the role of government and whether America will once again become a growth economy or sink into interest-group dominated decline," the Journal editorial said.
Romney is scheduled to be in High Point Sunday at 12:30pm, at Absolute Style Furniture.
WFMY News 2 will stream the event in High Point live on digtriad.com.
USA Today/Romney Campaign/WFMY News 2