Paul Ryan: Obama's 'Julia' website 'creepy' and 'demeaning' - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

Paul Ryan: Obama's 'Julia' website 'creepy' and 'demeaning' - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

Paul Ryan: Obama's 'Julia' website 'creepy' and 'demeaning'

By Justin Sink - 05/04/12 05:02 PM ET

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Friday that the Obama campaign's new website — which uses a fictionalized woman named Julia to illustrate how the president's policies help female voters — is "creepy" and "demeaning."

“It suggests that this woman can’t go anywhere in life without Barack Obama’s government-centered society. It’s kind of demeaning to her,” Ryan said during a constituent meeting in Wisconsin, the National Review reports. “She must have him and his big government to depend on to go anywhere in life. It doesn’t say much about his faith in Julia.”

Dubbed "The Life of Julia," the website follows a hypothetical character from age 3 to 67 and provides examples of when she might benefit from policies backed by the president — while suggesting that presumptive Republican candidate Mitt Romney would support policies that might have the opposite effect.

For instance, the youngest example — a 3-year-old Julia — is enrolled in a Head Start pre-K program backed by the federal government. But, the campaign warns, "the Romney/Ryan budget could cut programs like Head Start by 20 percent, meaning the program would offer 200,000 fewer slots per year."

The website drew swift scorn from conservatives on Twitter, who used the matter to mock the president over recent flaps. Ryan piled onto that criticism on Friday.

“Every one of those slides, I could go after their manipulation of statistics, and disentangle and unpack each of those talking points,” said Ryan. “It’s just the narrative that they’re trying to tell, that for this woman to succeed, she has to have a really big government.

“It really shows the philosophical premise they operate from, which is — I think Romney coined it well — it’s a ‘government-centered society.’ You have to have government at every stage of your life to be there for you; otherwise, you’re going to fail. It’s promoting a cradle-to-grave welfare society,” said Ryan.

Ryan discussed another website making the rounds in political circles: the "Hey Girl, It's Paul Ryan" Tumblr page that plays off a similar Internet meme featuring actor Ryan Gosling. The Wisconsin congressman said the website was "flattering, but weird."

“It’s very surreal to me — I’m just kind of a budget guy in Congress, doing my job, so it’s really kind of strange," Ryan said.