Paul Ryan's Republican Primary Campaign

Politics & Elections
#1

Paul Ryan’s Republican Primary Campaign

Fiscal expert Stan Collander notes that despite denials, Paul Ryan is actively running for GOP nomination, in the event of a contested convention.

[ul][li] Ryan is having the House consider a nonserious budget resolution consisting basically of red meat issues.[/li][li] Despite past promises, Ryan is letting the appropriations process fall behind schedule. [/li][li] His budget resolution is likely to be unacceptable to Republican Senators. They can piss off though: Ryan is running for President. [/li][li] Ryan has dropped the spending caps favored by Boehner. [/ul][/li]
Collander points out correctly that without such steps, Ryan’s nomination for the Presidency would be toast. So when Ryan says that he is not thinking about it, interpret that as meaning that he is in the race.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stancollender/2016/03/20/paul-ryan-is-cheating-on-the-gop/print/

Alt thread: " Have the seeds for a Paul Ryan nomination been planted?" http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=787259

Posts about 2016’s dysfunctional federal budget process can go here, because it aids Ryan’s campaign.

#2

We can only hope. Ryan would be the best candidate on either side.

#3

Ryan is firmly in the camp of “Republicans that don’t make me throw up in my mouth.” I strenuously disagree with him on most issues, but he doesn’t strike me as belonging in Arkham Asylum.

No way would he be a better president than Clinton or Sanders, but he wouldn’t be likely to set our country back 50 years the way Cruz would, or turn us into some dystopian proto-fascist state like Trump would.

#4

At a minimum, it’s pretty clear the GOP needs a white knight at this point. Whether that’s Ryan or not I bet there’s a lot of people hoping it’s SOMEONE.

#5

Hmmm. I thought Canadians were good at math.

Ryan is a con man who uses magic asterisks (shout out to Krugman) to make his ridiculous budget proposals make self-proclaimed centrists think he’s serious. He’s not serious.

#6

If Ryan is planning to jump into the race, I have to wonder why he has made his denials so Shermanesque. He could have issued denials that were much more flexible. He now faces the prospect that if he jumps in, he’s going to have to immediately face accusations of flip-flopping and hypocrisy.

#7

Well, he proclaimed that he wouldn’t take the Speaker job, either. Hypocrisy is second nature to him.

#8

By now we know that Ryan’s “I don’t wanna” are not “never”, so much as “If I’m going to do this you all need to be 100% behind me because I’ve got better things to do.” Ryan’s playing less coy than your average Presidential hopeful in that I think he really doesn’t want the job, but would be willing to give it a shot if he thought the party would back him 100%, and that includes the Trump people and the Tea Partiers.

#9

Eh. Show me that it didn’t make sense for him to change his mind and I’ll happily call him a hypocrite. If you don’t allow of folks to change their minds, you’re gonna have a lot of hypocrites out there.

#10

Yep. It’s kinda like saying, “I would never play for the New York Jets”, but then they offer you double what any other team is offering and all of a sudden it looks more attractive.

Ryan does not want to lead a fractured party. He’s making it very clear that if he accepts the nomination for President, it will be with the party united behind him.

#11

And if the party leaders block Trump there will be no united party to lead. :smiley:

#12

adaher, will (can) Republicans unite for anyone?

#13

Probably not, which is why Ryan has a good chance of not being the nominee. He’s the frontrunner among people not currently running, but if the delegates are unbound I think they’ll vote for Kasich. He actually wants it and doesn’t mind if a lot of people don’t like him.

#14

He wants the job. If he didn’t want the job, he would be actually trying to pass a budget rather than securing brownie points with the base. Stan Collander is an expert on the mechanics and politics of the budget process: he knows his stuff on this topic.

Don’t listen to what Ryan says. Watch what Ryan does.

#15

Horseshit. Ryan’s a delusional Randian who thinks ideology trumps math.

#16

If he wanted the job, he would have run for the job to begin with and he didn’t. Everyone can keep dreaming but Trump will be the nominee or the party will implode. The smart move would be to accept that reality and start focusing on how to keep control of the Senate and the House but I’m not holding my breath for that to happen anytime soon.

#17

Ryan is a supply-sider who wants to cut back or privatize Social Security, and cut or eliminate Medicaid and Medicare. His proposal to Trump’s base is: “screw you.”

Good luck Paul Ryan.

#18

Ryan is still young and presumably he figured in 2014 that 2016 wasn’t his year, unless something bizarre happens like the front runner is a reality show celebrity who has never held public office. Ha!

Or to put it another way, if Ryan wasn’t angling for the nomination, he would try to assemble a budget on time like he originally promised. As majority leader of the House, that’s his job. I can’t blame him. Trump has shown that there all sorts of paths to the Republican nomination. Maybe Ryan should attend acting classes in Hollywood.

#19

Discouraging news for the Draft Romney movement.

#20

Ryan’s denial was pretty specific: “I actually think you should run for president if you’re going to be president, if you want to be president.” So if Ryan gets picked at the convention, Trump and Clinton will both be happy to repeat this quote and say that by Ryan’s own admission he’s disqualified himself by not running a full campaign.

I think Ryan does plan on running for President - but not this year. He’s in a solid position in the House and he’s young. He’ll let the current crop of Republican candidates crash and burn. His reputation won’t be tarnished. Then he’ll run in 2020 if Clinton looks vulnerable or 2024 if she doesn’t.