ArcaMax

"Look, I was born in 1970 in Wisconsin," he told me. "What I'm learning is that what you're saying and what people are hearing are not always the same thing."

Yes, he was referring to his infamous sound bite on a radio show that triggered charges that Ryan was blowing a racial dog whistle to far-right whites: "We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular," he said during the radio discussion of poverty programs, "of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work...."

Coming from a leading white Republican, his "inner city" reference was heard by critics as a clumsy critique of black culture.

"I think of everybody -- Hispanics, Asians, whites. That's the inner city I know," he told me. Ryan offered examples of programs in his home state and elsewhere that try to "reconnect" people from various income and ethnic groups together through religious and other civic organizations to fight poverty with social, educational and economic opportunities.

"The point I was trying to make," he said, "is that we need to reintegrate people (from diverse communities) to make a difference."

Fair enough. One can argue, as I often do, as to whether Ryan's or Paul's budgetary and legislative ideas will help that reconnection or make it worse. Same with voter ID laws. But disagreements are where honest debates should begin, not end.

Ryan's and Paul's media stumbles illustrate how hard it is for any productive policy debate to survive in today's racially and emotionally charged political atmosphere. Issues on which we disagree should not be allowed to block progress in those areas on which we agree.

Ryan and Paul appear to be trying to meet that challenge. The big unanswered question is how far their conservative base will let them do it.

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E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.

(c) 2014 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.