Paul Ryan heads back to work in the House

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- Rep. Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who ran with GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, returned to Capitol Hill as House Budget Committee chairman.

Ryan, who won re-election to his House seat while seeking the vice presidency, says it's too soon to talk about his political future in terms of whether he'd make a presidential run of his own, WISC-TV, Madison, reported Monday.

"Oh gosh, we just finished a presidential election. I think everybody's tired of talking about presidential politics. I am," Ryan said in the interview that aired Monday evening.

"Right now, I look at what I've just been re-elected to do, to represent Wisconsin, to be the chairman of the Budget Committee, to deal with these budget and fiscal and economic issues," Ryan said. "I'm going to throw myself back to that work because it's work that needs to get done."

After the election, Ryan said in a statement he and Romney thought the race would be close and that they had a good chance of winning. In the aftermath, some laid some blame on Ryan for failing to deliver Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes for Romney.

During the interview, Ryan said he and Romney were "surprised with the outcome" of Tuesday's election, especially the turnout. But Ryan acknowledged his home state had been considered a reach for the GOP ticket.

"Well, we always knew Wisconsin was an uphill fight. Wisconsin hasn't gone Republican since the Reagan '84 landslide," Ryan said. "Mitt didn't pick me for Wisconsin, for a certain state. He picked me for issues, for governing, for taking on the debt crisis."

"We had hoped to win Wisconsin; we fought very hard here for Wisconsin," Ryan said. "We cut President Obama's lead in half but nevertheless, it wasn't enough."