Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
Peter Robinson ·
Aug 1, 2011 at 7:56pm
Bill Kristol in the current issue of the Weekly Standard:
Paul Ryan can’t accomplish much over the next year in the House. He should run as a candidate who’s shown leadership (the Ryan budget), who has successfully taken on Obama (at the House Republican retreat, the health care summit, and in the White House about two months ago), and who has the best chance of uniting the establishment and Tea Party wings of the GOP. If not Ryan, how about Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, or someone else who is young, sane, and unafraid?
It’s one thing for House Republicans to go through an awkward patch. It would be another thing entirely to fumble away the 2012 presidential election.
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May '11
Re: Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
If Paul Ryan thought that the only hope for the survival of the country was for him to run for president, he would do that. The situation is not that dire. Whoever comes out of the Republican primary system will have a conservative mandate to run on. The worst candidate in the field at this point, and that is a hotly contested position, looks pretty good to me.
Nov '10
Re: Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
With all due respect to Mr. Kristol, who says?
Dec '10
Re: Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
Ryan/Rubio 2012
May '10
Re: Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
I second the motion: Ryan/Rubio 2012
Sep '10
Re: Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
It seems we're fast-forgetting some of the (painful) lessons about the importance of prior executive experience the current POTUS is trying his utmost best to beat into our thick skulls.
I'm an enormous fan of Paul Ryan, but he's too young and too inexperienced to lead the free world through a tranquil stretch, much less through the extraordinary turbulence we're experiencing / about to experience.
When it comes to the POTUS, on-the-job executive orientation should be kept to an absolute minimum...
Nov '10
Re: Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
Chris Christie as a "conservative" is a complete mirage.
Kenneth has quite rightly pointed out the problem with Chris Christie -- his position on such fundamental issues is abysmal:
Chris Christie is no true conservative. A supporter of the Ground Zero mosque, a long-time advocate of gun control, a man who rallied to the side of a radical Imam who faced deportation, a Republican who favors amnesty for illegals and some form of cap and trade -- the guy is ersatz.
See this article for a complete discussion of Christie's squishitude.
Re: Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
The recent Ricochet post ( I think it was the post of the week) regarding the possibility that maybe 2016 is the year for conservatives to take the White House, comes to mind. If I were Ryan, I'd sit out until then.
Oct '10
Re: Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
I don’t know what the best ticket is/will be in Nov 2012. What’s starting to worry me is the sense that many of us, including prominent conservatives like Bill Kristol, are constantly saying, “No; that one is not quite right. Let’s try the next one I’m not really sure about.” We’re flopping about in search of something; we seem not to know what it is. The single most important factor in whether or not Obama is defeated in 2012 is not the state of the economy, our level of federal debt, war and peace . . . it’s the person (the whole person, not merely as a symbol) he’s running against. I wish I had a better handle on who that should be. And I especially wish smarter guys then me like Bill Kristol did, even if I disagree with them.
Or have I (we?) fallen into the modern media trap of thinking this really has to be resolved 15 months before the election? What's wrong with letting the Primaries perform their function starting in about six months?
Jul '10
Re: Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
I have been voting for guys running for office and it worked out exactly once, in 1984. I think the trick this time is to vote for guys not running for office. That should do it.
Edited on Aug 2, 2011 at 12:08amMar '11
Re: Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
Joe Escalante: If I were Ryan, I'd sit out until then.
Great - four more years of Mr Obama - what could go wrong?
Jun '11
Re: Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
Joe Escalante: The recent Ricochet post ( I think it was the post of the week) regarding the possibility that maybe 2016 is the year for conservatives to take the White House, comes to mind. If I were Ryan, I'd sit out until then. · Aug 1 at 10:22pm
Those who think this debt deal was sausage-making at its worst, wait to see what will happen when Obama is no longer constrained by an election...
Sep '10
Re: Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
Is this a game of fantasy politics?
Jul '11
Re: Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
Here's my vote for Ryan-Rubio or Christie-Rubio. Either would be preferable to Romney at the top, and Perry may turn off too many people (though I like him more than I do Mitt). Sadly, I just have no confidence that that either ticket is at all a possibility.
However: any chance that, if both Ryan and Rubio get put on the Super Committee (as Fred Barnes suggested yesterday), and the deal they get is a good one (or even if they don't get a deal but nonetheless come out of it looking like leaders), they make a late entry?
Jul '11
Re: Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
I think anyone who would downplay this election and think that we can wait 'til 2016 for the "right candidate" should consider that, if Obama is reelected, the nation will have the narcotic IV of Obamacare inserted into its veins. Like any entitlement, it will be extremely hard to pull it back, no matter how unsustainable it is, once people start receiving its benefits. Do we want yet another Medicare?
Nov '10
Re: Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
Forrest Cox: It seems we're fast-forgetting some of the (painful) lessons about the importance of prior executive experience the current POTUS is trying his utmost best to beat into our thick skulls.
I'm an enormous fan of Paul Ryan, but he's too young and too inexperienced to lead the free world through a tranquil stretch, much less through the extraordinary turbulence we're experiencing / about to experience.
When it comes to the POTUS, on-the-job executive orientation should be kept to an absolute minimum... · Aug 1 at 9:39pm
I agree with you on executive experience... However, Ryan has shown some executive ability by wrangling a majority to pass his budget plan and by keeping a cool head and defeating President Obama on his own ground several times now. He is also (along with Rubio) a very straight forward, eloquent defender of the case for limited government. Were this normal circumstances, I would say Ryan should serve a term as governor before running for POTUS. As it is not, he may be the best candidate we have and I would wholeheartedly support his candidacy.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Sep '10
Re: Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
I think we're coming dangerously close to confusing "executive" whatever (ability, experience, [insert noun here], etc.) with general competence, here. It's a sad state of affairs, to be sure, but the simple fact is that it's Amateur Hour, Every Hour in the White House right now, and when such a thing happens everyone's equilibrium gets thrown a bit.
In a vacuum, bettering a buffoon on any field could lend some legitimacy to the notion that you'd be better than him at anything. And Ryan would certainly be a better POTUS than President Obama. But this isn't a vacuum, and Paul Ryan isn't the only GOPer who can make a teleprompter-less Barack Obama look bad on national TV. We need to demand proven executive leadership, see our choice though to the White House, and hold him to account for delivering (or for not delivering) results.
Like you, I would support Paul - but I think we can do better...
Jul '11
Re: Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
Forrest - of any candidate who either is or probably will run (like Perry), of whom are you thinking here?
Fair points about executive experience, of course. And I think I'd rather see Christie at the top of the ticket than Ryan. But I just wonder if that deficit of Ryan's isn't outweighed by his superiority in other areas to the other candidates. In my mind, only Perry comes close. After Romney's lame, "Good, there's a debt ceiling deal, now I can say I oppose it," yesterday, I am really dreading having to support him.
Sep '10
Re: Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
Let me preface my reply by saying my view of the current field is tainted by the fact that I actually had to vote for John McCain during the last election - that, coupled with the utter incompetence of the current POTUS means my bar is perhaps (somewhat counter-intuitively) artificially low.
I think Perry, Pawlenty, Christie and Giuliani would all make better Presidents, for various reasons. I have always had extremely serious reservations about Romney, but don't yet have a firm opinion about his potential strengths in the Presidency vis a vis Rep. Ryan.
Once Mitch Daniels decided against running, to me, this race became about the GOP electing its version of Bill Clinton (as opposed to the Reagan-reincarnate we're always looking for; less, of course, the rape and the perjury) - a conservative who can sound like a centrist, who will still nominate originalist justices to SCOTUS and who really thinks we need to shrink government by clipping its roots rather than by pruning its leaves.
Sep '10
Re: Now, About Finding a Candidate, Or Paul Ryan, Call Your Office
One last thing I'll mention about Rep. Ryan - I've never seen him as a man in possession of "Presidential" presence. He's articulate, sure, and he's good at chopping the legs off of men who have presence. But I have yet to see him, on his own and without the benefit of a bag to punch (i.e. President Obama), speak in a manner that makes me think "that guy could be President". How many Generals in the Armed Forces would feel tempted to call a "President Ryan" "kid" or "son"? They'd never do it out of sheer respect for the office, but you know it'd be running through their heads. And rightly so.
The President can be beaten best on the field of general managerial competence - he doesn't have any, and the public senses it. We throw away our greatest advantage if we don't nominate someone who can say with credibility "I have been a leader of men and I have achieved results." The men who have that, you will find, will also have that decidedly "Presidential" look about them...(even if we don't like what they have to say)