Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) focused on laying out clear differences between the Democratic and Republican Party platforms for America during his remarks at the GOP National Convention Tuesday night.
Progressives, he said, "deliver everything except progress."
While he mostly avoided discussing presidential nominee Donald Trump, with whom he has had sharp policy and temperament differences, Ryan didn't hesitate to rip Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the liberal agenda.
Ryan, the 2012 vice-presidential nominee, acknowledged ruefully that his run with Mitt Romney didn't go according to plan, but he said he could look forward to the next State of the Union address where he could sit behind Trump and Mike Pence.
He praised the GOP for showing "signs of life" with its rambunctious primary, while he said the Democrats were going with the same-old with their nomination of Clinton.
"What is their idea of a clean break? They are offering a third Obama term brought to you by another Clinton," Ryan said. "And you're supposed to be excited about that. For a country so ready for change, it feels like we've been cleared for takeoff and then somebody announced we're all going back to the gate."
The Obama years are "almost over" and the Clinton years are "way over," he said.
"2016 is the year America moves on," Ryan said.
Ryan said people felt restless and disappointed because of the diminishing opportunity brought by liberal progressivism.
"Wages never seem to go up. The whole economy feels stuck," he said. "And [for] millions of Americans, middle-class security is now just a memory."
Under "the most liberal president" the U.S. has ever had, poverty has never been worse, Ryan argued.
"The result is a record of discarded promises, empty gestures, phony straw men arguments, reforms put off forever, shady power plays like the one that gave us Obamacare, constitutional limits brushed off as nothing, and all the while, dangers in the world downplayed, even as the threats grow bolder and come closer," he said.
However, he said he knew better than to think the GOP could win simply based on Democratic failures, saying Republicans had a clear advantage in the battle of ideas.
"The Republican Party stands as the great, enduring, alternative party," he said. "We believe in making government as Ronald Reagan said. Not the distributor of gifts and privilege, but once again the protector of our liberties ... We, in this party, are committed to a federal government that acts again as a servant, accountable to the people, following the Constitution, and venturing not one inch beyond the consent of the governed."