Ryan Lizza

The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza says the Republican's earlier views on foreign policy and his opposition to the Civil Rights Act may dog him, as well as the extreme libertarianism of his father, Ron Paul.

The president alone can approve or reject construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which is designed to take crude oil extracted from Alberta, Canada, through America's heartland to refineries on the Gulf Coast. New Yorker journalist Ryan Lizza says Obama could use the decision as a "symbolic turning point in the kind of energy future he wants America to have."

New Yorker writer Ryan Lizza profiles Rep. Paul Ryan from Wisconsin, whose radical alternatives to President Obama's economic policies have helped shape the GOP as it enters the final stage of the 2012 presidential campaign.