Going from the House to the White House

Talking with Mr. Middon over the weekend about the chances that Paul Ryan will step down or be ousted as Speaker of the House, hubby reminded me that Ryan didn’t really want to be Speaker in the first place. His opinion is that Ryan really wants to be POTUS, and Speaker isn’t a steppingstone to that job.

Which appears to be true – the only SotH who became POTUS is Polk. Then I realized that maybe Speaker –> Pres wasn’t really the right question. Maybe the real question is How many US Reps have become Pres?

According to this 19 members of the House have become Pres. Four of them however don’t really count, since they weren’t elected POTUS. Out of the 15 elected POTUS, only one (if I’m reading the chart right) was elected POTUS while serving in the House. That was Garfield, who maybe doesn’t count since he was elected Senator and declined the seat since he was elected Pres.

OK, I get why there aren’t any Presidents (except maybe Garfield) who went directly from the House to the White House – as a US Rep you’re one of many, and you were elected to your position (typically) by only a part of a state. You’re unlikely to have much national exposure. OK, maybe you get a name on a bill, but unless it’s a really important or very popular or very unpopular piece of legislation that hardly makes you well known. Senators and Governors usually get much more national press.

So I guess I’m back to my original question. Speaker of the House does give you a lot of name recognition. I mean, most voters have heard of John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Dennis Hastert, Newt Gingrich.

So why hasn’t the Speaker been able to turn that name recognition into a winning bid for the Presidency?

I’m going to reason that it’s because two reasons:

(1) A Speaker, by the nature of their job, can be painted into a corner on a lot of bills - both favorable and unfavorable. It’s the same problem a lot of Senators have when they’re up against non-Senators (e.g. Governors) running for Prez. Nowadays, these attack ads can write themselves - “Speaker Ryan promised to fix healthcare … but he couldn’t get it done as Speaker, what makes you think he’ll get it done as Prez?”*

*Note: I’m not a professional commercial writer. This is pretty lame compared to what professionals could come up with, I’m sure.

(2) The job of Speaker probably doesn’t leave a lot of time for national campaigning in the many years leading up to the Presidential elections

The Speaker is a lightning rod with a lengthy legislative track record. Nowadays having any sort of legislative record is a clear negative. Furthermore, there’s a reason why the last House Member to become pres was Bush Senior: In general, people HATE Congress critters.

Congress critters aren’t generally known outside their district, and when they do rise to national prominence its seldom for anything positive. The elimination of earmarks has made things far worse; now that there’s no pork every Congress Critter needs to sing for their supper, in the form of donor cash. Passing legislation (i.e. doing their job) has become completely optional (and probably a net negative). C.f. Freedom Caucus/Trumpcare.

I think it’s harder to go from the House to White House than it used to be. Most House seats are drawn so that only one party has a chance. Thus, you win the seat by winning the primary and appealing to the most partisan among your party. Working with the other party is a bug, not a feature. So you have no need to appeal to moderates or people from the other party, and if you ever ran for statewide office that would be quite apparent. Running for president from the House is quite difficult unless you’re that rare breed, a moderate.

This “moderate” of which you speak?..

It could just be that the sort of people drawn to the power that comes from the Speaker’s chair are not the same drawn to the Presidency. They are very different. And besides, it’s not like we couldn’t find a number of other positions of power that don’t appear on many presidential resumes.

They used to roam the chambers of Congress in great numbers, but gerrymandering has reduced their habitat so that the species is nearly extinct and what few remain appear to be sterile.

Speakers have usually been party guys(Tip O’Neill) or lightning rods for everything the public hates about a party(Pelosi, Gingrich). But Ryan’s different. He’s young, he was put there pretty much to save the party. It’s a very unusual situation. If he ends up being fairly successful he can pretty much just cakewalk to the White House whenever he wants.

Plus he’s a former VP candidate, so he has plenty of national exposure. Ryan would be a clear frontrunner should he seek to run.

A senator or governor can run for president without giving up their current job. It would be very difficult for a speaker to pull that off. Since most attempts at the presidency are longshots, a speaker candidate would be giving up an enormous amount of power for a small chance at even more power. Not a favorable exchange.

Hardy har har. He’s lousy at his job. His “health care” bill was an utter disaster and a textbook case of how not to pass legislation. He can’t manage his own caucus and refuses to work with Democrats. His VP run was quite forgettable and he brought nothing to the ticket. He has an undeserved reputation as a policy wonk, he seems to be of modest intellect and doesn’t appear to be very hardworking. If you want to get your ass kicked, nominate this turd.

Alas, Ryan’s “Repeal & Replace” attempt covered him in something other than glory.

FDR was the Dem nominee for veep in 1920.

He was the last veep nominee on a losing ticket who eventually became President.

I don’t think either Paul Ryan or Tim Kaine will break that jinx, let alone Sarah Palin or John Edwards.

THe repeal and replace issue was the hardest one he’ll face. Tax reform, keeping the REpublicans from restarting the favor factory, and maintaining Congress’ independence from the President will be a lot easier. There’s also the matter of continuing to reduce the deficit, which Republicans tend to be very bad at once they control everything. Ryan seems to be trying to keep them on track, so we’ll see how successful he is.