I’ve never understood the appeal of Paul Ryan, but he does seem like the only person approximating a unifying leader of the Republican Party. I wish I had a better overall feel for the kind of people who are getting selected as delegates to the Republican convention, but I have the sense that they’ll be influenced enough by congressmembers who overwhelmingly hate Ted Cruz that they could abandon both Cruz and Trump. I know John Kasich hopes to be the fallback person in that scenario, but Ryan seems like a better fit.
It won’t be easy to grease the skids for a nominee who hasn’t run in a single primary, though, and the ace in the hole for Trump and Cruz could be some kind of collusion to restrict the delegates’ choices to one or the other of them.
Trying to game out the convention is impossible at the moment. There just isn’t enough transparency to know what kind of power Trump and Cruz will ultimately have over the process.
I definitely see the appetite for someone like Ryan, though, if the Establishment can pull it off. But could Ryan run for his House seat and the presidency at the same time? You can do that in some states, but not in others.
Either way, I guess a lot of people like Paul Ryan. It mystifies me.
Yes Ryan can be on the ballot twice in his congressional district, he did so in 2012 while running for VP.
I also don’t see the GOtPer powers that be enchantment with him, especially after Joe Biden’s laughing at him through out the 2012 VP debate.
They’re desperate. They’ve got no game, and their natives have been restless for eight years and angry for four years. Their base didn’t appreciate having McCain forced on them, but Palin somewhat mollified them. The base only accepted the dickhead Mitt because they were told that he was “electable.”
The GOP elites couldn’t even come up with a single candidate that wasn’t seen as more insulting to the base than the losers McCain and Mitt. Have those base voters been pining for Ryan (the way many DEMs were pining for Biden)? Nope — he’s only popular with the Beltway pundits. Perhaps they’re dreaming of 1880.
That 2012 VP debate was one of my favorite nights in politics. When I become discouraged by the media’s fawning over Ryan and his related ability to consolidate power with the help of the conservative movement’s money men, I watch this and it reassures me:
When the biggest moment of his political career arrived, Paul didn’t have it. And the beautiful thing is that Ryan’s performance was not the problem; he was the confident, smooth sociopath we know and loathe.
No, the problem was he simply tells lies, lots of them. Transparent lies, lies about policy and lies about morality and lies about motivations and lies about political history. Brazen lies, predictable lies, lies so preposterous that Biden used his maturity to drive home the point: the kid’s off base. He laughed in Ryan’s face repeatedly and revealed him as the unprincipled and callow man he is.
Let’s remember that Trump is winning the GOP primary partially on the fact that he is running against large portions of the Ryan budget. Trump’s “budget” is a different brand of absurd, but that doesn’t make Ryan’s budget any less preposterous, it just identifies Ryan’s budget as less popular.
My answer to BooMan’s question: Ryan’s the extreme sociopath who best presents the conservative movement’s toxic agenda.
My favorite weird Paul Ryan moment was the fake dishwashing he did and made his kids do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTZDMVGs16E
There were no dirty dishes or pans to wash. Another candidate and campaign operation would have staged something else, but Lyin’ Ryan just plowed along with the scrubbin’.
Delightfully snarky of CBS News to post two minutes of easily observable fakery. His family looked real comfortable.
Yes, Ryan is their poster child but where is this agenda headed? As you point out Trump has been successfully running against it. Who is buying it anymore? I reckon they don’t realise that the party, so to speak, is over.
Unless the GOP takes the Presidency in 2016, they’ll never pass that Ryan budget, or any reasonable facsimile.
As far as the rest of their agenda, the objective problems the radical Randian agenda has run into in Michigan, Kansas, Wisconsin, North Carolina and elsewhere has hurt the prospects for more uber-libertarian policies. The Koch Brothers Krew need to start getting diminishing returns on their investments, though. As long as they keep on financing successful midterm election campaigns, their agenda will remain a real danger.
Jumping back and forth, just looking at style, I would say Ryan has a bit of boyish charm that makes me think about Hawkeye in MASH, but he lacks gravitas and gets dominated by Biden.
He’s just another in a series of placeholders auditioning for a better, more lucrative placeholder role. The whole thing’s unbelievably cynical.
I’m pretty sure there’s going to be a shoot out. It may be the first time I’ve ever been in favor of such a thing.
If they try to put Ryan in, something will sure happen. Can you not marine him giving his acceptance speech to a crowd of Cruz acolytes?
No way.
The Secret Service better call in the Marine Corps for that speech,
2 Marines for every delegate in the convention might work.
LOL.
Even if the delegates wanted to select Ryan, he wouldn’t take it. He has to know he’d stand little chance of uniting the party after stealing the nomination and would likely lose the election. Why risk that kind of black mark when he can run cleanly in four years?
He said he didn’t want to be Speaker, but they convinced him he was needed. He may just not be very bright.
Ambition versus wisdom at like 10:1.
The bubble Ryan keeps himself and his movement in doesn’t help. Politico and their kin help keep him insulated by telling the public how impressive he is, over and over. It’s weird, almost like they have a vested interest in helping him try to hide how unpopular his budget is.
It’s not working.
I’m still going to go with Romney. Yeah, it’s unlikely. But the wants it sooo bad.
It’s going to be Trump. Having him flame out in the general will do less lasting damage than a brokered convention.
I am completely unequipped to predict how the GOP will conclude their POTUS primary fight; their brains work differently from mine. Their voters may or may not give Trump the pledged delegates to win on the first ballot. Lacking that, the conservative movement has a list of options which are all horrible, horrible.
It’s kind of remarkable. It’s certainly what they deserve, and perhaps have made inevitable, by pumping the red meat to their base:
We like red meat as well, but get fed vegetables by the Democratic Party more often than we want. Moments like this remind us that vegetables are part of a healthy diet as well.
Red meat … vegetables … but the best part is the popcorn.
Oh, that IS good.
Paul Ryan’s Favorable Rating
John Kasich Favorable Rating
Just for grins (or groans)…
Ted Cruz Favorable Rating
Donald Trump Favorable Rating
Hillary Clinton Favorable Rating
Bernie Sanders Favorable Rating
Kasich is still above water in favorability, Ryan isn’t, but both still have a relatively high (about 25-30%) neutral/no opinion percentage. I guess people really don’t pay attention to politics…
My guess is that Paul Ryan is viewed as a true believer in the cult of Ayn Rand- always a plus with the billionaire class, but also lightweight enough for them to still be able to pull the strings.
Kasich, while having a higher overall favorable rating, has committed doctrinal heresy by accepting the medicare expansion and most likely would be a harder sell to the base.
Having said that, Kasich might have control of enough delegates to cut a deal with one of front runners (at least Trump) to be on the ticket and cut out whatever plan B the establishment comes up with if he wants to, but that seems unlikely due to personality and probably the delegate rules.
And… sorry.. but Trump, Cruz & Clinton all look almost un-electable.
“I’ve never understood the appeal of Paul Ryan.”
You and me both, buddy.
“Trying to game out the convention is impossible at the moment.”
True, but whatever it is, it’s going to be a free-for-all. The nearest analogy would probably be Syria.
My guess that the pundits look into his “dreamy blue eyes” and think they see his soul. W was the same about Putin.
Booman writes:
That’s because you believe that visual media-controlled politics is rational. It’s not.
I posted here recently about this subject and about Ryan.
He could have been a situation comedy star. His populartity? It’s all about looks. That’s what worries me most regarding a contest between Trump and either HRC or Sanders. The more telegenic candidate has won almost every presidential election ever since JFK/Nixon. Some people in positions of power in both parties must be intelligent enough to suss this out. Ryan has a saleable image. The rest of them? Not so much.
AG
What a doof.
Ryan is a doof, but in conserva-world, he’s THEIR kind of doof. I find him pretty repulsive, myself, but I find most politicians repulsive. But R pols seem to embody a real serious repulsiveness that I can never wrap my head around. Yet conservatives flock to it.
So I can agree that, in the looks dept, Ryan embodies what the base finds attractive on many levels. His Ayn Rand acolyte status is a net positive, as well.
It worked so well in Kansas and Louisiana.