Career Turning Point for Paul Ryan?

Rep. Paul Ryan “stepped to a podium Tuesday night for a defining moment in his legislative career,” USA Today reports.

“For the better part of the past decade, he has carved out a niche as a leader in the Republican Party based in part on the ideological purity of his budget blueprints, but this week he played a co-starring role in cutting a budget deal with liberal Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington.”

New York Times: “With
a modest, bipartisan blueprint on taxes and spending, Mr. Ryan is
taking a risk he has previously shied away from, putting what party
leaders see as a crucial need — ending the debilitating budget wars in
Washington that have crippled the Republican brand — over his own
self-interests with the conservative activists that dominate the early
Republican presidential primaries. For the first time, the conservative
wunderkind and former vice-presidential nominee is taking withering fire
from movement conservatives who see the deal as a betrayal by a former
ally. Potential rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in
2016 immediately went on the attack, blasting the deal and challenging
Mr. Ryan’s status as the thinking man’s conservative.”