Paul Ryan Campaigns in Roanoke County - FOX 21/27 WFXR Roanoke/WWCW Lynchburg News, Weather

Paul Ryan campaigns in Roanoke County

Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan was met with an enthusiastic crowd Wednesday morning at Northwest Hardware on Brambleton Avenue in Roanoke County.

After an introduction from fellow congressman Morgan Griffith, Ryan was joined on stage by Chris McMurray, who is better known as "Chris the Baker."

"Someone who knows we did build it: the next Vice President of the United States Paul Ryan!" McMurray announced to the estimated crowd of more than 1300.

Ryan was surrounded by signs of "We Did Build It!" while speaking.

He repeatedly referenced President Obama's now infamous line from his downtown Roanoke speech in July, which is less than five miles from where Ryan spoke on Wednesday.

"In front of the fire station here in Roanoke when he did say, 'If you have a small business you did not build that, someone else did'. It's an explanation. It tells us why our economy is not growing like it should," Ryan told the crowd.

The vice presidential candidate also detailed the ticket's five-point plan, which includes an added focus on domestic energy like coal, which got a big reaction from the crowd.

"We have a lot of energy in this country. Let's use the energy in this country," Ryan said. "It's common sense. It's jobs, coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, renewables, all of it."

There were also promises.

"If we win, we repeal ObamaCare," he said.

As well as arguments against big government.

"One woman's gain necessarily comes at another person's loss. That's not true," Ryan told the crowd. "Our job in an opportunity society, in a free society, is to grow the pie so everybody can get a bigger slice of the pie. It's not government's job to redistribute the slices of the pie."

Ryan ended by leaving the crowd with a familiar message about the significance of the Commonwealth, similar to one Southwest Virginia voters heard from both President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden earlier this summer: "You deliver Virginia, you save the American idea."

After the speech, former Virginia House of Delegates Majority Leader Dick Cranwell gave the Democrats' response.

"[Paul Ryan] is the face of the change that the Republican Party wants to wrought on this country," he said. "That's not good for senior citizens, it's not good for the middle class, and, as I said earlier, it's not good for our veterans."

Ryan is the fourth presidential or vice presidential candidate to speak in Southwest Virginia in the last two months.