Ryan: Obama pushed America left

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COLORADO SPRINGS, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan blasted President Obama's four years in office saying he pushed America away from its founding principles.

Campaigning in Colorado Springs, Colo., Thursday, Ryan, R-Wis., said he and GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney "are not going to try to transform this country into something it was never meant to be."

Responding to former President Bill Clinton's fierce criticism of the Republican economic agenda at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., Wednesday night, Ryan said, "There is no other system in the world that has done more to help the poor ... than the American system of freedom and free-enterprise."

He told a crowd of about 2,000 people in an airplane hanger next to the Colorado Springs airport, Obama "can't say we're better off than we were," The Denver Post reported. "It's why his campaign has gone from hope and change to attack and blame."

Ryan touted Romney's business experience and again vowed to repeal healthcare reform and defend Medicare, saying, "our rights come from nature and God and not from government."

Ryan called the Nov. 6 election "a generation-defining moment ... it really kind of comes down to 'what is America?'"