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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
I don’t know about “haters yelling”, but it would seem that House conservatives have quite a bit of leverage. Of course, in true GOP Establishment fashion, they are being asked to give up their leverage unilaterally. No doubt this is to make them real members of the GOP club — surrender your weapons before battle. Ryan is making no promises, and has a demand in place to be made untouchable even by a rarely-used check on the power of an unwelcome Speaker.
Shall we also do away with the power to impeach and remove the President? After all, no President could be sucessful with that sort of weapon aimed at him all the time. Or should we just extort a promise to “make it more difficult”, in unspecified ways?
Ryan’s argument here is weak and I think bad. It is important to convince conservatives that they have no power. Learned helplessness makes people very pliable.
Why?
Not exactly — actually not at all. There is a ton of misinformation floating around on this one. He’s demanding that a handful not be able to vote with Democrats to dump him. He’s not asking that he be made unassailable. He’s not asking to get rid of the motion to “vacate the chair,” he’s asking for changes. He’s proposing, for instance, that the motion to “vacate the chair” require a majority vote of the caucus first. But he’s not even holding out on that specific version of reform — evidently he floated others.
Conservatives are using that weapon now, but it could very easily be someone from the other end using it next time around. Reform makes sense: if you’ve really lost confidence in your caucus you’re gone, but a few disaffected members can’t do it.
Brian, this is mathematically false and you provide no back up to support it.
You are much much better than regurgitating party talking points.
Ryan’s budget plans are based on growing government 33-50% and will explode the debt and deficit and are based solely on outsized growth assumptions that are unattainable at debt:GDP>1.
If Paul Ryan has agreed not to push comprehensive immigration reform has he then agreed to support motions that do not fund DHS in support of Obama’s executive amnesty?
We do not have a situation where our immigration system is just fine and we are concerned that Paul Ryan may support a plan to break it.
Our immigration is broken, we are being invaded. Where does Paul Ryan stand and what will he fight for to stop it?
If we believe that growing federal spending 33-50% in the next decade while imagining 4%+ growth for a recession free decade as good I am not sure how much good we can afford.
I love you…marry me.
I don’t love you, sorry.
Please?
No.
Pretty please?
I’m just not that into you.
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeese.
OK, fine.
That dress is terrible.
Wow, kinda disappointed with the quality of the comments here.
It started off with an ad hominem attack, and went downhill from there.
Not what I signed up for.
Kevin, was the OP all that you hoped for?
I think we need to place the Ryan plan in its proper context.
That context being one of being an alternative to the Obama’s budget deficit projections out of the CBO and OMB (which if I recall were sky-high as far as the eye could see.)
The other bit of context that I think is important is that the Republicans were still operating (I think) under the impression that the President was an honest broker and that the normal rules for Washington were still in effect. That assumption has respectable origins with Uncle Milty. Uncle Milty couldn’t have predicted Barack Obama.
Ultimately, I think the Ryan plan was a concession to the idea that politics is the art of the possible. There was no way that Ryan could produce a budget that was truly transformative given the mood of the country and Obama’s popularity at that time.
The mood of the country is somewhat changed now. It’s likely that a Speaker Ryan with a Republican President will be able to right the ship.
Why don’t we just give him a shot instead of shooting him before he’s had a chance?
You mean “inappropriately.” :)
Read the comments. Brian Watt speaks seriously about serious points. Those who oppose Ryan essentially do the usual- scream “No Amnesty!” at the top of their collective lungs, and push for yet more meaningless show votes by the House regarding ObamaCare and the debt ceiling while letting all the Appropriations bills sit there.
Good grief.
Paul Ryan on immigration in his own words (2013):
2012
I’m having a hard time figuring out what sort of realistic immigration policy would not be an amnesty? Is it amnesty if it does not include mass deportations, or are such deportations the sine qua non of an acceptable immigration policy to the anti-Ryan contingent?
Man on deathbed, all alone as his estranged children couldn’t be bothered to make a final visit: “I wish I had spent even more time fundraising for my fellow Republicans.”
Agree, not our finest hour.
The reason we are critical of him is his record of what he’s fought for.
In absence deporting those that are here illegally and detained at the border it is in effect amnesty.
You mean the Republicans, but I’m not sure that’s correct. If the most extreme Republicans split from the party a significant contingent of middle-of-the-roaders might be willing to move over from the Democrats. People who resemble the blue dog Democrats from a few years ago.
There are plenty of people who could vote Republican if they didn’t think they were voting for the Rick Santorum wing. They want a balanced budget, secure borders, a strong military. But they don’t want to talk about homosexual marriage anymore. They don’t want to talk about abortion, at least not all the time. They don’t want to deport 11 million illegals. They don’t want Donald Trump.
I’d like to read the speaker’s job description. Do you have a copy?
That shot (the first, not the second) is being negotiated. Sounds like FC is willing to be quite flexible, so long as he doesn’t insist on an innovative lock on power and doesn’t push amnesty.
The blue dogs were decimated in Pelosi’s Obamacare jihad.
If they are voting for moderate republicans they are not voting for balanced budgets, secure borders.
Isn’t it obvious that Harry Reid goes to the podium to praise Ryan just so people like you (and me) will take it as proof that Ryan is tainted? It’s a classic misdirection. “If I like him, and I know you hate me, then you are going to hate him, too.”
Same reason he pretended not to like Romney. He actually hoped for a Mormon caliphate, and only loyal Obama voters foiled his plot!
They were decimated because the Democrats went too far to the left, and so the people who voted for the blue dogs voted Republican instead. Those are exactly the voters I’m talking about. They are persuadable.
They will vote for moderate Republicans but they won’t vote for more extreme Republicans under any circumstances, and they think the Democrats are worse on budgets and borders.
Answer me this: (If and) When you saw Harry Reid praise Ryan didn’t it make your skin crawl? Didn’t it have exactly the effect I described?
I like Ryan, so to me it was obvious that Reid is trying to hurt him by praising him. If you don’t like him it is easier for you to believe that Reid really likes him and wants him to be speaker.
When Reid starts playing for realsies, e.g. accusing Ryan of tax evasion, we’ll know he’s being honest about his desires. In the meantime, I’m inclined to believe Reid’s 2012 treatment of Ryan is an honest reflection of what he wants, and his current endorsement is tactical application of reverse psychology.
The folks who don’t like Ryan,one of the smartest and most principled conservatism on the hill, seem to like Trump who is a progressive. Go figure. We finally have the best bunch of candidates in my life time (lots of years), reject a guy like Ryan and embrace a progressive like a Trump.. People I’ve liked, Rush for instance are promoting the idea that Trump is the not Bush candidate. It’s all crazy. Bush and Trump are probably the only republicans who couldn’t win.
I can’t blame the guy for not wanting the job unless it’s on his terms – and one of those terms is “not having to pick arrows out of his back from friendly fire.”
As I explained in that other thread, the Freedom Caucus isn’t where the rest of the country is. That is lamentable, but it is a political reality. They need to be a little bit more strategic about this and recognize that coalitions that are so tranformative of policy are not built overnight. They take years to construct and even then may never actually materialize. If we constantly engage in this circular firing squad we are never going to be aiming at the real target, only knocking off our own guys who are going over the battlements.
I think Winston Churchill said that Americans will ultimately do the right thing, but only after having tried every other option first.
“Don’t throw me into the briar patch!”