Ryan’s opponents want to portray the home-district confrontations as the first stirring of a liberal tea party II, while the congressman’s staff and supporters are casting the 41-year-old conservative as a solitary budget warrior willing to make the hard decisions to save the country from fiscal ruin.This is Politico, so of course they go on to portray Ryan as the cool leader facing enemy fire and making far more friends than enemies, which is awfully nice of them. But the polls aren't on his side and he ain't popular. When you're too extreme for Bachman, I think you might want to evaluate how much support you can possibly have.And he is looking increasingly solitary. Last week, House Speaker John Boehner said he was “not wedded” to the Ryan budget that his caucus passed with near unanimity. On Sunday, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) described the Ryan budget that she voted for as an “aspirational document.”
"What I'm saying with that vote is that we have to make decision, we're not saying every single decision in that bill — that aspirational document — will be the final result. What we are saying is that we have a conviction," Bachmann said on "Fox News Sunday."