Is America in decline? ….

This election is … a test of the American people’s determination to rise up as free citizens shaping our own destiny — saying “no” to the defeatism that sees us sliding down and helpless to change it.  Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin joining the Republican ticket as Mitt Romney’s running mate is a clear signal that the GOP intends to frame the contest in exactly those terms….

Ryan’s youthful energy at 42, the intellectual command that has propelled him into House leadership, his steely courage as a truth-teller about our fiscal peril and a pathfinder away from the precipice toward prosperity, as well as his unapologetic faith at a time when religious freedom is under attack, make the vice-presidential nominee a clear asset for Republicans and a feared opponent for Democrats.

Add to this the hard-charging congressman’s love for the Colorado high country (he has climbed 40 of the state’s 54 peaks over 14,000 feet)….Why does it matter that Paul Ryan is a mountain man,….? Because there is no better index of character.  The high peaks simply test your mettle. Declinists and defeatists need not apply. Excuses are for flatlanders. …Can you imagine Vice President Joe Biden even wanting, let alone being able, to stroll the Capitol knife edge? Or forging to the top of a “very rough and steep” Pyramid, with its “precariously poised rocks” warned of in the same guidebook?

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Freelance columnist John Andrews ([email protected]) directs the Centennial Institute, a conservative think tank, and has climbed many Colorado Fourteeners.