Paul Ryan’s Dress Rehearsal

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How the decision not to run for president got him ready for the national stage.

11:20 AM, Aug 29, 2012 • By STEPHEN F. HAYES

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So if Paul Ryan looks surprisingly at home on the largest stage of his political lifetime this evening, ironically it will be in part because he walked up to the precipice last summer and then stepped back. Oddly enough, he may have overestimated the difficulty of a national run. As he told Fox News’s Bret Baier on Monday, the biggest surprise for him since Mitt Romney invited him to join the ticket is that “it’s been a lot less stressful and a lot more fun than I anticipated. People said it would drain me. It actually energizes me. So it’s been a real pleasant surprise.” ♦

Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.