Breaking this morning is news that Wisconsin's Senior Senator, Democrat Herb Kohl, is retiring. After knocking off Socialist Senator Russ Feingold last cycle, Wisconsin Republicans have an opportunity now to conduct a clean sweep of their US Senate representation. And Paul Ryan is the man to do it.

Some may balk and say Ryan should use the influence he has developed in the US House, where he has the ear of Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor, but we think he's needed more in the US Senate. Not a whole lot of new and inspiring ideas have come out of the US Senate in the recent past — it's usually the place where good (and bad) legislation goes to die. 

We need new ideas, energy and, yes, more youth in the AARP of legislative bodies. Watching the late Senator Byrd have no idea where he was when he was speaking on the Senate floor was a sad, and scary, metaphor for the state of the US Senate. We need people with guts, moxy, chutzpah, whatever you want to call it — but someone willing to challenge the status quo.

It would also mark a key battle in the fight to convince Americans that conservative fiscal policy is the way to fiscal solvency and a brighter future. Wisconsin is no Utah, and when Ryan won his seat it would mark a great victory for conservative ideas in a land where people are not necessarily pre-disposed to nod their heads in agreement.

Progressives charge that the last election in Wisconsin, in which Republicans took control of two US House Seats, a US Senate Seat, the Governor's Mansion, the State House and State Senate, was merely a historical aberration. The 2012 election of Paul Ryan would put that ridiculous notion to rest. 

We say: run, Ryan, run.