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Ryan wins sixth term in House

JANESVILLE — Paul Ryan said there’s much Democrats and Republicans can agree on when they return to Washington next year to do the nation’s business.

Voters from Janesville in the west to Kenosha in the east awarded Ryan a sixth term in the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

Ryan crushed Democratic challenger Marge Krupp of Pleasant Prairie.

Krupp was not taking reporters’ questions Tuesday night, said her campaign manager, Chris Barr. She issued a short statement:

“We worked hard, and we tried hard, and unfortunately we came up short. But I could not have gone to my deathbed without at least trying.”

When asked whether Krupp might run again in two years, Barr said: “We are discussing those options right now. We’re going to take the next couple of days off and kind of go from there.”

Ryan goes back to Washington to work in a Democrat-controlled Congress and a Democrat in the White House. But he’ll be a leader in his party.

“I’ve moved up in seniority tremendously,” Ryan said.

He’ll be the most senior Republican on the House Budget Committee and one of the senior Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee, he said.

Looking at the election returns nationwide, “I think the lesson to take from all of this is we’ve got to break the gridlock in Washington, and there are a lot of issues that Democrats and Republicans can work on together without compromising each other’s principles, and we’ve got to get moving on those right away,” Ryan said.

Those issues include dealing with the economic crisis, including extending unemployment compensation, Ryan said.

The two sides also can agree on giving patients more control of their own health care and on alternative energy, Ryan said.

The two parties will have disagreements, of course, and it is up to the Republicans not merely to “trash” the Dems, but to offer principled and bold alternatives, Ryan said.

“And at the end of the day, you’re going to get better government out of that process,” he said.

Ryan said he hoped for a more civil dialog than in recent years “and I want to be a party to helping make that the case.”

Asked about his political future, Ryan said he’s not sure when, but he plans to leave politics.

“I don’t want to be a lifelong politician,” he said. “I’m 38 years old. I don’t see me spending my adult life doing this.”

Ryan said politics will be the first half of his career. He said he doesn’t yet know what the second half would consist of.

Ryan spent more than $1 million on television and radio ads through Oct. 15, the Associated Press reported. He had not run television commercials since first winning re-election in 2000.

The victor said he decided to go with ads in order to air his “road map” proposals that include reforming the tax code and solving the fiscal problems presented by entitlement programs such as social security and Medicare.

Political wisdom is that those issues are losers in an election year, Ryan said, and he wanted to prove that wisdom wrong.

“I believe when you go to the people with big ideas, they will reward you for tackling big problems,” Ryan said.

And it’s that victory that he’s bringing back to Washington with him, he said.