(CBS News) DAYTON, Ohio -- Rep. Paul Ryan said on Wednesday that Vice President Joe Biden's remark that Republicans were trying to "unchain" Wall Street and put Americans back in "chains" is a sign of a desperation from the Obama campaign.
"These are the kinds of things you say when you are desperate in a campaign ... I think you're going to hear more of these things as we go on, because they have a terrible record and can't run on it, so they're going to kind of sink this campaign to these low levels to distract people," Ryan said in a radio interview with conservative Fox News host Sean Hannity.
"We've gone from hope and change to anger and division and blame and attack, and I think people are going to see right through this," he said.
Biden's remarks, delivered at a campaign rally in Virginia on Tuesday, have incurred outrage from the Romney campaign, though Biden said he stands by them.
Ryan also defended the controversial changes to Medicare in the budget he offered and suggested that critics were misrepresenting his views. The Romney campaign also has been rebuked for its recent statements on Medicare.
"It's a classic straw-man argument, which is affix views to your opponent that they don't have, in order to defeat the argument, defeat those views, and win the argument by default," he said. "It won't work, and I think people are going to see through it."
Ryan: Biden comments are 'desperate'
By Rebecca Kaplan
/ CBS News
(CBS News) DAYTON, Ohio -- Rep. Paul Ryan said on Wednesday that Vice President Joe Biden's remark that Republicans were trying to "unchain" Wall Street and put Americans back in "chains" is a sign of a desperation from the Obama campaign.
"These are the kinds of things you say when you are desperate in a campaign ... I think you're going to hear more of these things as we go on, because they have a terrible record and can't run on it, so they're going to kind of sink this campaign to these low levels to distract people," Ryan said in a radio interview with conservative Fox News host Sean Hannity.
"We've gone from hope and change to anger and division and blame and attack, and I think people are going to see right through this," he said.
Biden's remarks, delivered at a campaign rally in Virginia on Tuesday, have incurred outrage from the Romney campaign, though Biden said he stands by them.
Ryan also defended the controversial changes to Medicare in the budget he offered and suggested that critics were misrepresenting his views. The Romney campaign also has been rebuked for its recent statements on Medicare.
"It's a classic straw-man argument, which is affix views to your opponent that they don't have, in order to defeat the argument, defeat those views, and win the argument by default," he said. "It won't work, and I think people are going to see through it."
Rebecca Kaplan covers the 2012 presidential campaign for CBS News and National Journal.
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