Between the battle for the Republican presidential nomination turning to Wisconsin next week and his own actions, Paul Ryan is starting to loom over the presidential race.
After Ryan gave a major speech last week on the state of American politics, the buzz grew louder that the House speaker could be waiting in the wings if Republicans have a contested convention in Cleveland come July.
Certainly Ryan’s condemnation of how politics is conducted would play well in this election cycle.
Ryan could conceivably end up a favorite of Republican delegates. From his efforts in Congress and as Mitt Romney’s running mate during the last presidential election, Ryan is generally well regarded by the GOP rank and file. In the various leadership contests held last year, Ryan did not garner the same opposition from the right and the tea party movement as John Boehner and Kevin McCarthy.
Ryan would certainly be more palatable to the GOP leadership that Donald Trump or Ted Cruz.
Of course, many Trump and Cruz supporters would not forgive the GOP for going with a candidate who hadn’t even entered the primaries -- and Ryan has more than his share of baggage.
The GOP leadership insists Trump and Cruz can’t take the presidency in November but Ryan hasn’t exactly proven himself an electoral winner either. Ryan couldn’t deliver Wisconsin for Romney four years ago and has never won a statewide contest. There’s a reason no sitting member of the House has won the presidency since James Garfield did it back in the Gilded Age (and even then our martyred 20th president was elected to the Senate but his term hadn’t started when he was nominated by the GOP in 1880).
Ryan also has the burden of being part of the congressional leadership. Even though he's been speaker for less than six months, Ryan’s been a member of the leadership for years, helming the Budget and the Ways and Means committees. In recent election cycles, members of the congressional leadership from Bob Dole to Dick Gephardt to Howard Baker stumbled badly on the campaign trail when they sought the presidency.
It’s been more than a half a century since a dark horse presidential candidate emerged out of a convention but often the parties turn to unknown figures: Wendell Willkie, John W. Davis, Jim Cox, Alton B. Parker, Benjamin Harrison, Garfield, Rutherford B. Hayes, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Pierce, James K. Polk. From his stint as Romney’s running mate to now leading the House, Ryan is a pretty well established leader in national politics.
Nominating Ryan would give the Republicans another problem during a presidential election: finding a replacement to wield the gavel in the House of Representatives. Ryan only emerged after McCarthy was shot down and he had first expressed no interest in becoming speaker. There’s no one standing by to take over for Ryan if he ends up running for president and would face calls to give up his leadership post like Dole did in 1996.
On the plus side, Ryan would, in theory, be better than Trump or Cruz in helping Republicans keep control of both chambers of Congress. The Democrats are already talking up the possibility of flipping the Senate and vulnerable GOP incumbents in red states like Mark Kirk, Rob Portman and Ron Johnson, would prefer to share the ticket with Ryan than Trump and Cruz.
Ryan’s generating a lot of buzz as the best alternative to Trump or Cruz but he would pose more than a few headaches for the GOP if it decides to tap a dark horse. The Wisconsin congressman simply isn’t the white knight some of his supporters are currently painting him as even as the GOP leadership tries to explore any alternative to Cruz or Trump.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN.
