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Paul Ryan’s Detractors Have Zero Leverage
Years ago, I was offered a lousy middle-management job at a horrible company. I repeatedly told the recruiter that I wasn’t interested, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“I can increase the salary!” No, not interested.
“What if you can set your own hours?” No thanks.
“Look, I’ll start you off with a month’s vacation and…” NO.
After several annoying calls over a couple of days, I finally said, “Look, I’ll take the job on one condition: Starting salary of a million dollars.”
Several seconds of silence followed before the recruiter said, “um … but, really, what salary are you thinking of?” I repeated my demand, trying to suppress a Dr. Evil voice. That recruiter never called me again, having finally understood my real demand: I don’t want the job.
Rep. Paul Ryan has been repeatedly asked, encouraged, cajoled, and begged to take over the Speaker’s gavel when Boehner drops it. Ryan’s answers have been no, no, no, and hell no. But after another week of Republicans insisting that Ryan is the only human being in existence who can unite conservatives and RINOs, Tea Partiers and country clubbers, young reformers and Hill lifers, Ryan had enough.
He finally relented and said, sure, I’ll take the job … on three conditions:
- The House Freedom Caucus, the Republican Study Committee, and the moderate Tuesday Group all need to support me.
- Change the House rules so disgruntled congressmen can’t toss me out so easily.
- This better not cut into my family time.
Some members were outraged, as were many on talk radio, and (natch) the Internet. How dare he make demands on the people’s representatives! Never before has a Speaker ordered he not be ousted! He wants time with his family … he should be working 24/7!
How many times does Ryan have to tell you that he doesn’t want the damn job? His detractors should be thankful he didn’t demand a million dollars like one smart aleck I know.
Since modern politics runs on outrage, the fact that Ryan doesn’t want to be Speaker has made the anti-Ryan caucus even angrier. Apparently it hasn’t yet dawned on them that they have zero leverage over the Wisconsin representative. If the grumblers lose, it’s Speaker of the House Paul Ryan; if they win, it’s a much happier Ways and Means Chair Paul Ryan.
So, in their impotence, talk radio complains that Ryan loves his family more than he loves government, and websites scream that Ryan has insufficient interest in amassing political power. Both of those complaints only highlight his conservativism.
Here’s the deal, haters: You don’t want Paul Ryan to be Speaker. Paul Ryan doesn’t want to be Speaker. Since you both agree, why are you yelling at him?
Published in Politics
While I can hardly aspire to the title of “hater”, I think the issue is that he’s obviously going to be the speaker despite the fact that exactly nobody really wants it. This is similar to the way McCain “won” the nomination in 2008.
I like Paul Ryan too much to want him as speaker. He’s happy where he is and his talents best fit that position. Let him crunch numbers, write a budget and spend the rest of his time with his family.
I only regret not having left that joke of a political party sooner. Ryan is a pro-amnesty shill and will get no support from me.
The small self named conservative group holding the House hostage don’t even have enough votes to put the gavel in the hand of their own candidate. Say what you want about banana republics but at least one side always brings ammunition to takeover a country.
I heard what’s his name, the nominee for this Gang of 40 interviewed and I was not impressed.
The complaints about him wanting to protect his family time were really, really petty. I have lost some respect for some people over this one.
Because you know what the time thing is all about? Fundraising.
Now granted I spend enough time around children to take his concern about their “formative, foundational years” as an actual serious thing. Having Dad away four days a week plus most weekends plus the media glare plus attacks from left and right and outer space plus being stuck with a famous name… that’s actually not a healthy recipe. He is absolutely right to think about that and seek to protect them as much as possible… and that includes being there.
I understand fundraising’s important too. But come on. Especially when you’re going out of your way to make leadership’s life complicated, even if you do so for honorable and necessary reasons, that’s a pathetic. Especially when everyone knows he actually means that. And especially when he is, in fact, agreeing to give up some time.
Paul Ryan as speaker of the house with a republican president not named Trump would make America great again.
If we are lucky.
Is there another kind?
Well we’d probably just receive word that there is not enough GOP votes in the Senate to get anything done.
Also featured on Drudge: “Massive new surge of illegals at border; 10,000 caught in September.”
And Ryan is basically promising to ignore the immigration issue.
As someone of a relatively young age the past few weeks have put me on the path to despair as I watch Donald Trump rise in the polls, driven by the same ideologues who would refuse to back an honorable Republican like Paul Ryan because he’s not “conservative” enough. Total insanity.
The house Freedom Caucus is no longer a stronghold of conservatism in any sense. They are radicals and should be treated as such. If they can’t support someone as genuinely conservative as Paul Ryan, we conservatives should rise up and kick them out of the Republican Party.
If they don’t want to be team players then they can create their own party where they can live in a perpetual minority. They can spend their days griping about how no one listens to them (in between calling in to talk radio stations) where they will be the most happy and content, because they will never have to be concerned with every being responsible for governing or doing anything substantive.
Speaker is kind of important and not that important in the big scheme of things. It not like he has the nuke launch codes.
Let’s get focused people.
Ryan is a good guy to do this.
Jon, great post. Funny. More humor. The irony of how this turned out makes me wonder, was this John “Dr. Evil” Boehner’s plan all along?
If the freedom caucus split, guess who else would be in a perpetual minority.
Amnesty is not a conservative position by any definition. Those who support it are the true radicals.
This encapsulates the main reason I like(d) him as VP nominee. This IS worth a lot. Reconciliation, while not a panacea to Obamacare and runaway spending, can certainly pull the emergency brake and slow it down.
Redneck Desi, where are your 2015 posts? We need your leadership again. Please get fully back in the game.
In the end, they did. We could be talking about as few as ten people. They’re just vocal.
For the most part, the problem is the influencers: every single media player who treats Trump as conservative and Ryan as an “establishment open-borders amnesty shill.”
I do believe this caucus has been unwise and unprofitable in their general tactics, and that it’s a trend for some of those associated with it. Some of these congressmen are sincere. Some are playing politics. I don’t know whether Speaker Ryan can make a difference. Still, them leaving the party would only make it far, far worse. It gives the Dems a majority. They’d take voters with them, in a big way.
A Republican president could change the whole dynamic and conservatives need them. We may well actually benefit from their influence on policy. I think most of them would be scared to make perfect the enemy of the good and be responsible for blocking Obamacare repeal, for instance — just as most of them did not want to block Ryan when it came down to it.
@BFB #30:
I thought that was very well said.
Lemme get this straight. Ryan will take the job, but only if he doesn’t really have to do the job, he can’t get fired if he does a lousy job, and everyone else has to jump over the Capitol dome whenever he says jump.
Nice work, if you can get it. If he doesn’t want to do the job, [CoC] him. If he’d rather spend time with his family than work to strengthen the party, get someone else to do the job and let him spend as much time as he wants with his family. I’m okay with it if he wants to resign his seat and be with his family 24/7.
The reason Ryan gets portrayed as an “establishment open-borders amnesty shill”, is that he acts like one. If it looks like a duck, and it acts like a duck, and it sounds like a duck, people tend to think it’s a duck. If Ryan’s ever seen an amnesty bill he didn’t like, I’ve never heard about it.
If he’d said that the Freedom Caucus would have told him to walk.
First, John Boehner reportedly spent three weekends per month fundraising. That doesn’t need done by one person. No one should ask someone with three young children to spend so little time with them when the work can be spread around. This is just reasonable.
Second, he is not saying he can’t be fired. He’s not even saying to get rid of the “vacate the chair” motion, just to change it. He’s saying it shouldn’t be possible for a handful of representatives to dump him by voting with Democrats to get rid of him. I think the best option is a vote in the caucus first. If a majority of your own side is done with you, you’re out — but a splinter group can’t do it because they’re mad over whatever.
If anything, in opening the door to process changes he’s offering to give up some of Boehner’s actual power.
Gang of Eight. He actually didn’t want the House to do it that way, and they weren’t going to. They were breaking it up.
I am not into an immigration fight at the moment, to be honest. But I am familiar with Ryan’s position, and I find that rhetoric to be utterly ridiculous (and thus completely unpersuasive). Even when I don’t agree with him.
I’m not asking him to do that. I’m not asking him to take the job. But if he takes the job, he should be expected to do the job. Fundraising is part of the Speaker’s job description. It’s hard. Not everyone wants to do it. I get that. One of the few bright spots in Boehner’s Speakership was his willingness to work to strengthen the party. Ryan sounds like a lazier version of Boehner. Pardon me for not being thrilled by that prospect.
So he’s not quite as awful on immigration as Rubio. I suppose I did set a rather low bar, but if I recall correctly, the House never voted on the bill, so he never had to actually cast a vote.
“Lazy” is a word I don’t think I have heard anyone ever remotely call Ryan until this week. More completely the opposite.
Nothing in the Constitution says the Speaker of the House needs to spend 40 weekends yearly fundraising. I think the House gets to choose what the job description includes. My understanding is he does quite a bit of fundraising as it is. He just wants to do less than Boehner.
If they’ll accept Majority Leader McCarthy doing some of the begging from wealthy donors, don’t see why that should concern any of the rest of us. I’m guessing they understand their re-election coffers pretty well, and they overwhelmingly think it’s worth it. Evidently there was a move afoot to convince him some of that could be shared around, and that there were people willing to do it.
Not understanding the importance of having leverage is the number one reason the freedom caucus and the talk radio loudmouths are a bane to the conservative movement. They live in a fantasy world.
Paul Ryan endorsements… Harry Reid, Luis Gutierrez. Awesome
Luis’ explanations that Paul Ryan has been advocating for comprehensive immigration reform since his days with Kemp in CA. Priceless.
I love the smell of amnesty in the morning. Nothing warms the conservative cockles of my heart like the dissolution of my polity.
Godspeed Mr. Ryan.
I just read on NRO he’s agreed not to push immigration reform. I’m inclined to believe him.
Not being able to unite behind Ryan and making Trump the leaders in the polls is depressing. Makes me believe we are going to lose the election in 2016. I did not think that was possible 6 months ago with the strong line-up we had. Now we have eliminated 2 great candidates, and relegated other good options to also-rans behind Trump and Carson – none of them with any evidence they would be suitable Presidents.
The party should really do something about its processes. Neither speaker nor primary process works for us.