The reasons politicians say they don’t want to run and get away with it is because they all do it. Obama ruled out a run for the Presidency himself, at least as early as the 2008 election.
This type of shit is so damn ridiculous. There’s a bunch of good and legitimate reasons not admit you’re think about a presidency run and “because they get away with it” ain’t one of them. That’s what I like to call cynicism masquerading as intelligence. Do you tell your boss that you’re looking for a new job? No? Ooh, then you must be some kinda politician!
This. Neither a third-party run nor a nomination-theft has any real chance of success. The R vote will be fractured either way, either by the Trumpians or the anti-Trumps.
If I’m a smart politician and I want to have a political future, I’m keeping my hands WAY off this election.
Ryan’s not stupid. He has to realize he’s being asked to throw himself on a grenade in order to save the rest of the platoon.
But usually they leave themselves some wiggle room so they can walk it back. They’ll say something like “I have no plans on running for President” - which leaves open the possibility of a convention draft.
Actually, Obama was definitive:
A fair point, adaher, albeit I would note that was in January 2006, nearly three years (well, 33-34 months) before the 2008 election, not something that is concurrent with the ongoing election process as it is happening.
I’m with little Nemo above, I can’t see him doing it knowing he’ll catch it from both sides (the Dems and the disaffected Trumpers) and maybe ruin his chances for the future.
Still, Interesting Times…
He already did that when he took the Speaker job. Now he’d be throwing himself on top of a warhead to save the army.
Ryan will not be the nominee, and he will make no public attempt to be the nominee.
Why? Because regardless of his magical math, he does have a few brain cells in his head.
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Remember that rule that says you’ve got to win 8 states to be considered at the convention? It’s gonna be hard to change that rule with both the Trump and Cruz forces aligned against it.
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Even if he were successful, he’d have supporters not just of Trump, but of Cruz as well, feeling that they were stabbed in the back, and Ryan had done the stabbing. That would screw his chances not just in 2016 but forever.
Ryan has to know this is over and Trump is the nominee. The things listed in the OP are better described as poor leadership than actual planning.
There is no way anyone with half a brain jumps into this race as a sacrificial lamb for the establishment. Ryan knows he can’t win after the Trumpistas bail on the party if the nomination is taken away from him, why would he throw away his career for a chance at getting creamed by Hillary?
I agree. It’s too late for a White Knight to come in and save the party. All said Knight would do would be to split it up.
Do you know if item #1 holds regardless of how many votes they are on (at a contested convention)? IIRC, there is at least one “rule” that is only valid on the first round of voting (but can’t remember what that rule is).
Rule #1 (first time I’ve heard of it, actually) eliminates Kasich, too.
So far it eliminates everyone except Trump.
Oh, I agree with you. I didn’t hear a lot of that argument back in 2004, though, during the famous “Kerry is a FLIP-FLOPPER!” Republican smear campaign.
Absolutely. He’s exactly the kind of far-right nutcase that would get the Kochs to enthusiastically support him. But such is the dilemma in which the Republican party now finds itself that he has the following great virtue going for him: at least he is not a psychopath. Trump is. Psychologist and author Maria Konnikova makes the case that Trump fully meets the overlapping clinical criteria for both narcissism and psychopathology. Trump is the nightmare that the Founders tried to guard against.
Agree, but I’d restate it just a bit.
There is no way anyone with half a brain *and a long political future *jumps into this race as a sacrificial lamb for the establishment. Ryan knows he can’t win …
Ryan has a future to protect. So he’s smart to sit this one out while appearing statesmanlike (for R values of “statesmanlike”) from the sidelines. And happily enough for an exposure hound, also from the podium of the convention.
Somebody like Romney or even McCain (you heard it here first folks!) has very little future to protect. And as such might be willing to roll the dice hoping for double-six but expecting something less.
I see a bunch of good in the R draftee being a prior nominee or nominee also-ran. Either Romney or McCain can honestly say they’ve been through the R primary process, been fully vetted by the R electorate, and found to be fully good enough to be the party’s standard bearer. a few yeas may have changed who their competition is, but it hasn’t changed who/what they are.
Drafting some other nameless 2nd term Senator not so much.
The rules can (and probably will) be changed again when the convention begins. And the rules can be suspended with a 2/3 vote of the convention. But as it currently stands, rule 40(a) says there shall be a roll call, rule 40(b) says that only candidates who present certificates from 8 or more states showing a majority in those states shall be placed in nomination, rule 40(c) says they can give a nominating speech, rule 40(d) says that when the roll is called you need a majority of all eligible delegates to win, and rule 40(e) says that the chair will call the roll over and over until someone wins. Rule 40(d) also says that the chair will announce only the votes for candidates eligible under rule 40(b), so no “write in” votes.
As it stands now, there is no rule that says more candidates can be placed into nomination after the first roll call.
Thanks AD!
…but you weren’t talking about a future election, you were talking about 2016.
No matter how much Ryan may want to be President in the future he is surely smart enough to know that allowing himself to be drafted if things fall apart at the convention could very well be career suicide.
As RTFirefly points out in post #29 there are a couple of reasons why this isn’t likely to happen. AND, even if there is a successful vote to suspend the rules and Rule #40 is removed as an impediment, there is still the fact the Trumpists, and to a lesser degree the Cruz fans, would go berserk if they felt their guy was being cheated.
So far Ryan has given the impression he is smart enough to know how tainted the nomination would be in that situation. Of course, he could always turn out to be less intelligent than I think he is.