While the nation is getting to know Paul Ryan better since his selection as Romney’s running mate, it’s time they become acquainted with his mate of 14 years, wife Janna Ryan. With a sunny personality, friends describe her as very sharp, down-to-earth, and a good complement to husband. Not only that; the couple share a love of the outdoors.
“Janna has been the definition of balance of Paul,” former congressional staffer for Ryan and current Wisconsin state Senator Dave Craig told ABC News. “She has always been Paul’s rock to make sure he’s grounded.”
A mutual friend introduced the Ryans to each other at a party in Washington DC in 1999. Before that, Janna Ryan grew up in a tiny town in Oklahoma and is a small-town girl at heart but is accustomed to politics and the nation’s capital, working as a tax attorney, lobbyist, and congressional staffer.
Janna Ryan, 43, majored in Spanish at Wellesley College. “I can’t imagine there would be a single person at Wellesley who had [a] bad interaction with her,” Pia Thompson, president of the class of 1991, told Yahoo News. “She was honestly the nicest person there. I don’t know if it was her Oklahoman sensibility … she was an absolute sweetheart, always with a smile, always with a hello to anybody.”
Her first job in Washington after graduating cum laude in 1991 was as a legislative aide to former Oklahoma Rep. Bill Brewster, a Blue Dog (conservative) Democrat. Like both her parents, Janna became a lawyer, receiving her J.D. from George Washington University Law School by taking night classes. To add to her litany of accomplishments, Janna is a stay-at-home mother to Liza 10, Charlie 8, and seven- year- old Sam. In a family photo from Paul’s Facebook page, the happy family is casually dressed in matching Wisconsin Green Bay Packers sweatshirts.
Unlike many congressional members, the Ryans raise their children in his Wisconsin congressional district, living in a brick colonial home on the same block where Paul, 42, grew up. They want their children to have the same type of childhood that they had growing up, including a backyard in a small town with other family members nearby. The family attends the local Catholic Church. Besides raising her family and supporting her husband, Janna is a member of a book club and enjoys gardening.
In an article about their engagement in the April 2010 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Paul Ryan spoke of the time they shared a deer stand and Janna spotted the buck he shot on opening day of hunting season. When he proposed to her, it was at one of his favorite fishing spots, Big St. Germain Lake in Wisconsin. The Ryans married in December 2000.
During a recent speech in Oklahoma, according to a state political blog CapitolBeatOK, the new vice presidential candidate joked that he and his family visit the state “three times a year—deer season, duck season and turkey season.” For some reason, he said, “Janna refers to our visits as Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving.”
Friends say Mrs. Ryan stays current on policy issues and is very knowledgeable of Paul’s political beliefs and economic ideas. “The core identity of the country is now at stake,” Ryan told CapitolBeatOK in an interview. “We don’t want or need socialist democracy. All of us who agree on fundamental principles of freedom, limited government, personal responsibility and government accountability must band together. We have to reapply ourselves to the struggle for freedom and the things that come with it.”
Janna shared another side of her husband in her first interview after Romney’s announcement with People magazine. “You know, he’s pretty low-maintenance,” said Janna. “Paul is someone who goes with the flow and has one of the sunniest demeanors and most positive outlooks of anyone I’ve ever met.”
The same could be said about Janna. At one of her first campaign appearances, Janna wore a dress from Kohl’s. “She’s very low-maintenance and very modest” said a friend from Washington DC, Jodi Bond.
Another friend of Janna’s for more than twenty years, Tom Cole (R-Okla.) says, “She is comfortable talking to people at the Sand Bass Festival one day and having dinner with the governor the next. There’s no stiffness to her. No awkwardness.” Maybe Janna grounds Paul so well because she is so down-to-earth and grounded herself.
Photo credit: NewsHour (Creative Commons)
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I would like to see the ticket switched to Ryan – Romney.
Ryan’s turn will be coming if he wants it. After what Obama and the Rats have done to this country, they can say good-bye to the White for at least 16 years, and may never get it again. The Tea Party may replace both parties if the aren’t careful. The international crime machine DemonRats need to be disolved first!!!
White=White House
I am surprised BO and the crazy dems havent tried to change it from white to another color !!
Just saying !!!
Tea Party is going to be a factor…..people with brains that care about America’s Future for ALL it’s CITIZENS, not the darn illegials from all over the globe!!! We start with Romney/Ryan in the WH….
Agreed. Haven’t we been down this road before as in Palin-McCain? I don’t think Romney could excite anybody if he ran into a crowded theater and yelled “fire.” If he doesn’t get out of this ridiculous low key campaign technique of, figuratively speaking, using a soft white glove to gently slap Obama across the cheeks in challenging him to a duel instead of landing body blows like those Reagan delivered regularly against Jimmy Carter in 1980, then he will fail to excite people enough to get out and vote for him.
No matter how you slice it, Romney is a dull man. Charisma is something with which he is not blessed. He reminds me too much of the Mormon missionary slicked up in dark pants, a white shirt and narrow black tie, pedaling around the neighborhood on a bicycle. The demonicrats/progressives/commies will do everything in their power to lie,. cheat and steal and accuse Romney of everything awful under the sun including murder, the latter being an accusation they leveled at him in a recent attack ad.
I’m not advocating matching the demos tit for tat to that extent but certainly he has to stop being Mr. Nice guy and hammer Obama on the issues of which there is no shortage. If Romney doesn’t lay all that out in passionate factual detail every day until election day, he stands to lose. If he’s counting on the debates to pull him through he can forget it. Were it Newt Gingrich debating Obama I’d say that was a safe bet but not with Romney. On the other side the Ryan-Biden debates should be entertaining.
I fear the McCain factor otherwise referred to as the inside the beltway republican establishment factor, in the Romney campaign. That was the case 4 years ago and we know how that turned out. Surely these people, the Romney people, are not so stupid as to repeat that mistake, or are they?
Romney is not dull. He is a deep thinker and a very caring man. He loves this country and loves GOD and his Family.
Ann is a wonderful wife and mother and I can’t wait to see them in the white house.
Id rather have Mitt than the LIAR IN CHIEF THAT IS IN THE WHITE HOUSE ANY DAY.
Nov could not come any sooner. I want to vote now but I have to wait.
Obama and moochelle !! can start packing now.
It is nice to know a little more about the Woman who stands beside he husband Paul Ryan. What a nice Lady. She will be an awesome VP wife for America!
It takes a GREAT woman to make a GREAT man… be it a MOTHER or a WIFE.
May God contiue to bless them both
AMEN
Mitt Romney & Paul Ryan met & Married the perfect women.
USA USA USA…. GOD BLESS AMERICA….
If it were not for GOD Mitt & Paul would never have met their wives.
You said it!
I LOVE GOD AND I PRAY THAT GOD BLESSES THIS NATION WITH MITT AND RYAN
very nice article ,about her. we have a team who all have faith,loves and believes in, what our country stands for. pl,orl,fla
and then there’s Moochelle ….
MOOCHELLE CAN START PACKING !!!
Excellent!!!!! Our current and hopefully soon to be former First Lady needs to take a lesson or two.
That’s what we need in this country: A budget expert, a tax attorney, a great business-man and someone with the kind of compassion only a disabled person can have. We could not have dreamed up a better ticket for president and vice president (in case you’re really dense, that would be Mitt and Ann Romney and Paul and Janna Ryan).