Paul Ryan’s Shrewd Move
By Noah Rothman
October 21, 2015
Commentary Magazine
The news moved fast on Tuesday night. After meeting with a variety of House Republican factions, Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan took to the lectern to address the press. He had been subject to an interminable draft effort over the last week to accede to demands that he assume the speakership, following House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s decision to withdraw from the race to succeed House Speaker John Boehner. Only Ryan, his admirers contended, could hold the House Republican conference together. But the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee bucked those efforts. For a man in the ambition business, Ryan seems to have little of it. To judge from his actions, the Wisconsin representative wants nothing more than to spend time with his family and to rewrite the tax code. In his current post, he can satisfy those two aims, but he would have to sacrifice his personal desires if he were to accept the Speaker’s gavel. Still, Ryan has been called upon to serve his party in a more prominent role before, and he accepted the appeals of posterity then. On Tuesday night, Ryan made it clear that he would do so again, but only if his conditions were met.
Those conditions are quite shrewd. “If I can truly be a unifying figure, then I will gladly serve,” Ryan said. In his mind, that can only be achieved if he utterly neutralize his opponents within the conference, most of which come from the party’s conservative members who populate the House Freedom Caucus. Ryan revealed his intention to acquiesce to demands that he ascend to leadership, but only if a full-throated endorsement by every faction of the House GOP was forthcoming and only if the House rules were amended so as to make a motion to vacate the chair more difficult to employ. This last demand, Ryan’s conservative critics contended, was a bridge too far.
“No matter who is speaker, they cannot be successful with this weapon pointed at them all the time,” said Paul Ryan’s spokesman, Brendan Buck. A source who spoke with CNN’s Dana Bash put it more bluntly: “He’s willing to take arrows in the chest but not in the back.”
But Freedom Caucus members balked at the demand that they unilaterally disarm merely in order to help Ryan ascend to the Speaker’s chair – an outcome that most members of that conservative caucus are not especially crazy about to begin with. Representative Raul Labrador told reporters that the Freedom Caucus would be unlikely to secure the votes necessary to provide Ryan with its endorsement as a result of this demand. “It was my understanding that Thomas Jefferson thought that was good for the House,” an apparently irritated Representative Tim Huelskamp told National Review reporters, “and Paul Ryan thinks he doesn’t have to live by that?”
“The best thing I can assume is that he really doesn’t want the job,” Huelskamp added.
Bingo.
It’s been clear for some time that Ryan does not want to serve as Speaker; not amid divided government, not ahead of another debt ceiling showdown, and not during a contentious presidential election year when there will be no major reform legislation moving through the House and just keeping the lights on will become unduly controversial. (No, conservatives, there will be no push for comprehensive immigration reform in an election year, no matter what you read in fundraising emails from unscrupulous political action committees.) Ryan’s third demand, the preservation of his ability to spend time with his young family on the weekends betrays his lack of interest in the job. Part of being the leader of the House majority and the third in line for the presidency of the United States is donor maintenance and fundraising, and that means spending a lot of time on the road. Ryan has no interest in the politics of the Speakership.
So, Ryan has put the ball in the House Freedom Caucus’s court. A motion to vacate the chair has not been appealed to for a century and, while there was a constant threat that Boehner might face a challenge from his right, there is no telling whether it would have been successful. The threat this motion poses is an almost purely hypothetical one, which makes it perfect ground upon which to fight the House conservatives.
Maybe the Freedom Caucus balks at Ryan’s bid and uniformly backs Representative Daniel Webster, who remains in the race to succeed Boehner. Maybe the Freedom Caucus scuttles Ryan’s bid, an outcome the former vice presidential nominee might welcome. If so, the Ways and Means chairman can throw up his hands in frustration and gesture over his shoulder in the direction of the HFC, which had developed a reputation for being recalcitrant and unreasonable. Ryan can say that it was the House’s arch-conservative members that thwarted the fondest hopes of the GOP’s donor class and its influential base of supporters. Only those in the conservative talker class who routinely finish Donald Trump’s sentences and who find merit in the notion that the celebrity candidate predicted the 9/11 attacks will be jubilant.
Trump’s longevity in the GOP presidential race suggests that this wing of the Republican Party is a force to be reckoned with, but the House Freedom Caucus’s members might not be so happy to find themselves unwelcome in all but such illustrious company. The Freedom Caucus is in a bind; they either consent to Ryan’s demands and frustrate their already terminally frustrated base of supporters or scuttle Ryan’s bid and anger thevastly broader pool of Republicans who appear warm to his prospective speakership. If Ryan is able to get even the House GOP’s members who are lukewarm toward his leadership bid to virtually beg him to save the conference, his legitimacy will be unassailable. If he cannot, he gets to blame the Freedom Caucus for the chaos that will ensue. Either way, it’s no skin off Ryan’s nose.
The news moved fast on Tuesday night. After meeting with a variety of House Republican factions, Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan took to the lectern to address the press. He had been subject to an interminable draft effort over the last week to accede to demands that he assume the speakership, following House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s decision to withdraw from the race to succeed House Speaker John Boehner. Only Ryan, his admirers contended, could hold the House Republican conference together. But the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee bucked those efforts. For a man in the ambition business, Ryan seems to have little of it. To judge from his actions, the Wisconsin representative wants nothing more than to spend time with his family and to rewrite the tax code. In his current post, he can satisfy those two aims, but he would have to sacrifice his personal desires if he were to accept the Speaker’s gavel. Still, Ryan has been called upon to serve his party in a more prominent role before, and he accepted the appeals of posterity then. On Tuesday night, Ryan made it clear that he would do so again, but only if his conditions were met.
Those conditions are quite shrewd. “If I can truly be a unifying figure, then I will gladly serve,” Ryan said. In his mind, that can only be achieved if he utterly neutralize his opponents within the conference, most of which come from the party’s conservative members who populate the House Freedom Caucus. Ryan revealed his intention to acquiesce to demands that he ascend to leadership, but only if a full-throated endorsement by every faction of the House GOP was forthcoming and only if the House rules were amended so as to make a motion to vacate the chair more difficult to employ. This last demand, Ryan’s conservative critics contended, was a bridge too far.
“No matter who is speaker, they cannot be successful with this weapon pointed at them all the time,” said Paul Ryan’s spokesman, Brendan Buck. A source who spoke with CNN’s Dana Bash put it more bluntly: “He’s willing to take arrows in the chest but not in the back.”
But Freedom Caucus members balked at the demand that they unilaterally disarm merely in order to help Ryan ascend to the Speaker’s chair – an outcome that most members of that conservative caucus are not especially crazy about to begin with. Representative Raul Labrador told reporters that the Freedom Caucus would be unlikely to secure the votes necessary to provide Ryan with its endorsement as a result of this demand. “It was my understanding that Thomas Jefferson thought that was good for the House,” an apparently irritated Representative Tim Huelskamp told National Review reporters, “and Paul Ryan thinks he doesn’t have to live by that?”
“The best thing I can assume is that he really doesn’t want the job,” Huelskamp added.
Bingo.
It’s been clear for some time that Ryan does not want to serve as Speaker; not amid divided government, not ahead of another debt ceiling showdown, and not during a contentious presidential election year when there will be no major reform legislation moving through the House and just keeping the lights on will become unduly controversial. (No, conservatives, there will be no push for comprehensive immigration reform in an election year, no matter what you read in fundraising emails from unscrupulous political action committees.) Ryan’s third demand, the preservation of his ability to spend time with his young family on the weekends betrays his lack of interest in the job. Part of being the leader of the House majority and the third in line for the presidency of the United States is donor maintenance and fundraising, and that means spending a lot of time on the road. Ryan has no interest in the politics of the Speakership.
So, Ryan has put the ball in the House Freedom Caucus’s court. A motion to vacate the chair has not been appealed to for a century and, while there was a constant threat that Boehner might face a challenge from his right, there is no telling whether it would have been successful. The threat this motion poses is an almost purely hypothetical one, which makes it perfect ground upon which to fight the House conservatives.
Maybe the Freedom Caucus balks at Ryan’s bid and uniformly backs Representative Daniel Webster, who remains in the race to succeed Boehner. Maybe the Freedom Caucus scuttles Ryan’s bid, an outcome the former vice presidential nominee might welcome. If so, the Ways and Means chairman can throw up his hands in frustration and gesture over his shoulder in the direction of the HFC, which had developed a reputation for being recalcitrant and unreasonable. Ryan can say that it was the House’s arch-conservative members that thwarted the fondest hopes of the GOP’s donor class and its influential base of supporters. Only those in the conservative talker class who routinely finish Donald Trump’s sentences and who find merit in the notion that the celebrity candidate predicted the 9/11 attacks will be jubilant.
Trump’s longevity in the GOP presidential race suggests that this wing of the Republican Party is a force to be reckoned with, but the House Freedom Caucus’s members might not be so happy to find themselves unwelcome in all but such illustrious company. The Freedom Caucus is in a bind; they either consent to Ryan’s demands and frustrate their already terminally frustrated base of supporters or scuttle Ryan’s bid and anger thevastly broader pool of Republicans who appear warm to his prospective speakership. If Ryan is able to get even the House GOP’s members who are lukewarm toward his leadership bid to virtually beg him to save the conference, his legitimacy will be unassailable. If he cannot, he gets to blame the Freedom Caucus for the chaos that will ensue. Either way, it’s no skin off Ryan’s nose.
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