Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan did his first campaign swing through western Iowa yesterday. Highlights from his speeches in Council Bluffs and Sioux City are after the jump.

Ryan spoke to more than 1,000 people in Council Bluffs yesterday afternoon, after Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds warmed up the crowd. O.Kay Henderson posted the audio of Ryan’s remarks at the Radio Iowa website. The speech hasn’t changed much since his previous Iowa trips. He still talks about his Midwestern roots and his wife’s family in eastern Iowa, and he still closes with an upbeat “we can do this” message. He also still tends to chuckle at his own jokes, which might work in a small-group setting, but doesn’t come across well into a microphone at a large rally, in my opinion.

After commenting on the football season and Iowa’s crucial role in the presidential race, Ryan got to work making the case against President Barack Obama and for Mitt Romney. I found this part of his speech to be the most effective (my transcription):

You take a look at what the president’s doing. At what the president’s saying. At what he’s done. He’s not offering anything new, or any second-term agenda. We’ve had three debates, we’ve had lots of campaigning, and all we’re getting is a smaller and smaller campaign.

You see, he can’t run on his record. He’s not offering anything new. He’s not showing where he would lead the country, but it’s not very difficult to see where it would go, because it’s four more years of the same that we simply cannot afford.

What we do know is that he’s promising about a million successful small businesses get a really big tax increase in January.

What we do know is that that could cost us 700,000 jobs.

What we do know is that that one tax increase doesn’t even pay for 10 percent of all the spending increases that he has planned.

What we do know is that he has given us four budgets with a trillion-dollar deficit each and every time.

What we do know is that if he got another term, we’d blow past the $16 trillion debt on to a $20 trillion debt.

What we do know without a shred a doubt, is that these young people on their parents’ shoulders here in this audience are being consigned to a generation of debt, to a diminished future, the likes that we have never seen in this country before.

What we do know is that it is within our own doing, the power of democracy, the power of our ballots, to make sure that that future does not occur by electing Mitt Romney the next president of the United States.

Ryan’s claim about “small businesses” is highly misleading.

The misleading nature of this broad definition of small business is perhaps most starkly highlighted when one looks at the IRS-published data on the highest-income people in the country.  Of the top 400 people – who received $19.8 billion in S corporation and partnership net income in 2009 – 237 would be counted as small businesses.  These individuals, whose incomes averaged more than $202 million in 2009, hardly represent what most Americans think of when they hear the term “small business owner.”

Under this definition, both President Obama and Governor Romney would have counted as small business owners in 2011.  President Obama’s adjusted gross income of $789,674 included $441,369 in book royalties (net of commissions);[11] royalties are reported as pass-through income, so President Obama would count as a small business owner.  Governor Romney’s adjusted gross income of $20 million included $110,000 in author and speaking fees reported as pass-through income, so he, too, would count as a small business owner.

Even U.S. House Speaker John Boehner admits that only about 3 percent of small businesses would be affected by letting the Bush tax cuts expire for the top income bracket. Also, there’s no evidence that tax cuts at the top create jobs. But even if you believe Ryan’s 700,000 figure, those job losses pale in comparison to what might happen to the U.S. economy under the austerity budgeting Romney and Congressional Republicans support.

Misguided his budget priorities may be, but Ryan’s rhetoric probably sounds convincing to a lot of people, and his delivery is sharper than Romney’s. I expect Iowans will see him again in person before election day.

During a telephone town-hall with Iowans a few days ago, Ryan urged supporters to vote early, but he did not mention early voting during yesterday’s speeches. Iowans have already requested more than 477,000 absentee ballots and are on track to exceed the early voting numbers from 2008. Two recent opinion polls found a substantial lead for Obama among Iowans who have already cast ballots.

Later on Sunday afternoon, Ryan spoke in Sioux City.

“This is bigger than just turning our economy around. This is bigger than paying off debt. This is about the meaning of America. We can turn things around. It’s not too late. We can do this, but we need your help,” he told an estimated 750 people gathered at Bev’s on the River on the Missouri River waterfront. […]

“I can tell you what will happen if the president is reelected. We don’t want to go there, friends. We don’t want a debt crisis. We don’t want more joblessness. We want to get America back on track. We want to elect Mitt Romney the next president of the United States,” he said, to cheers.

Ryan also critiqued the president’s stance on small businesses, using Bev’s as an example.

“Here at Bev’s, this is a small business. The president is promising to increase the tax rate on successful small businesses above 40 percent. That doesn’t create jobs,” he said.

Again, Ryan called attention to the president’s negative campaigning.

“You see, the man we heard four years ago offering hope and change is the very kind of candidate he was then criticizing,” Ryan said on the deck of a restaurant, Bev’s on the River here. “He has become what he criticized. He’s not offering hope and change, he’s offering attack and blame and frustration.”

Fair enough, but it’s been clear for more than a year that given the weak economic recovery, the most promising strategy for Obama was to make this election a choice rather than a referendum on his first term. If he were facing a stronger Republican nominee, Obama would be dead in the water already.

Any comments about the presidential race are welcome in this thread.