House Speaker Paul Ryan told delegates to the GOP state convention on Saturday that he is proud of the growth of the Republican Party in Wisconsin in the last 20 years and that the future is bright for the GOP. With Ryan’s announcement earlier this year that he is not seeking re-election, this is likely to be his last GOP convention as a member of the House of Representatives.
The conclusion of Ryan’s speech, transcribed by his office:
So the point is, we have done so much in so short a time. And that is why I am so proud of the men and women that I have done this with, that I’ve worked with. I am so proud of my friend and my dean, Jim Sensenbrenner, who has been with us from here and back. I am proud of Glenn Grothman, of Sean Duffy, of Mike Gallagher. These are men who are going and fighting with us in the trenches to get these things done.
I am so proud of what Mike Pence said the other day: we have the best governor in the country: Scott Walker. I am so proud that he is joined by one of our state’s best cheerleader, the capable Becky Kleefisch. I am so proud that in this opioid epidemic that we are all rolling up our sleeves and fighting, we’ve got the nation’s leader in our Attorney General, Brad Schimel, I am so proud of what he is doing.
I am so proud that when I get frustrated with the United States Senate, I have a person, a voice of reason who agrees with us, who is actually voting the way we all want in Ron Johnson. And I am so proud that we are going to send him somebody else, and it ain’t going to be Tammy Baldwin, to join him in the Senate next year.
There’s a lot to be proud about. There’s so much to be proud about. And that leads me to the final part of this. I just want to say thank you. I want to thank you for just the opportunity. I want to thank you for the friendship. I mean, I look around here and I think I probably recognize 60 to 70 percent of your faces. We have done so much together for so long. I am just so thankful. Thankful for the opportunity that you have placed in me, especially the people in the First District. Thankful for the chance to serve in this beautiful state and this great and wonderful country. And thankful for having the chance to take this agenda, these things we believe in, and marshal them through into law and see the difference being made.
And as I come full circle on this, I am very grateful and very proud, but at the end of the day, when you’re a guy who has been there for 20 years, and your kids are 13, 14, and 16, the thing I am most, most proud about is being a husband and being a dad. And that is why I need to be more than just a weekend dad, and I’m going to do this knowing that we have made a big difference, knowing that our future is bright, knowing that our philosophy and our principles work, and knowing that our best days are yet ahead of us. And I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, from coming to RPW conventions on the banks of the Mississippi over in La Crosse since 1992, to today, God bless you, and thank you so, so much.
