Paul Ryan Sounds Way to Qualified to be GOP Speaker

For one thing he is smart enough to know that this is a terrible job. But the more you hear about his tenure on Ways and Means, the less he sounds like the kind of guy the Freedom Caucus will approve of.

If the past is any guide, Paul Ryan would be an uncommonly detail-oriented House speaker.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/ryan-speaker-record-ways-means-214859#ixzz3oko75MML

If the past is any guide, the Ways and Means chairman would be an uncommonly detail-oriented House Speaker, more willing to push through obstacles but less resigned to snafus than current Speaker John Boehner.

The education session is a signature Ryan move: A major reason for his credibility with the rank-and-file is the many hours he put in, year after year, going over the fine points of his budget proposals with members of the Class of 2010, sometimes in one-on-one meetings, to make sure everyone understood the numbers. That dogged approach surprised longtime policy watchers and won Ryan plenty of fans in establishment Washington.

Surprisingly, given his reputation as a conservative crusader, Ryan would also be able to work with Democrats on some issues — assuming the right wing that constantly throws sand in the gears of leadership would let him.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/ryan-speaker-record-ways-means-214859#ixzz3okpLmxym

I don't know, he sounds way too much like a leader. We know the Tea Party hates leaders. The Freedom Caucus wants to 'reform the process' in a way that lets members put up endless amendments and totally hobbles the ability of leadership to get anything done.

Given Ryan's natural inclination toward policy and his attention to legislative detail — a characteristic congressional aides and lobbyists who have worked with him all emphasized — he'd be the kind of speaker who’d want to pore over things like revenue estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. Some worry his nitty-gritty talents would be wasted in the top leadership post, with its constant demands for tending to members and looking at the big political picture.

“He’d be good [as speaker], but it’s not the highest and best use of his skill set,” a former Ways and Means aide said, echoing Ryan’s own statements about the job Republican heavyweights are urging him to seek. (Like most people POLITICO interviewed, the aide wished to remain anonymous given the unsettled nature of the scramble to replace Boehner.)

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/ryan-speaker-record-ways-means-214859#ixzz3okq3ChOu

This is actually a point Lawrence O'Donnell made the other day. In terms of House hierarchy, moving from Ways and Means to Speaker is a demotion.

Again, he sounds too qualified for the job-this is the GOP in 2015 where getting things done is not what ii is about at all, to the contrary, it's all about the purity of opposition. It sounds like he might even be an improvement over  Boehner-isn't that going to lead to Tea Party opposition?

Why yes it will:

"The Capitol is witnessing a spectacle that would be hard to imagine just a few years ago: Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), long considered a conservative darling, is coming under fire from some in his party’s right wing for being insufficiently conservative. At a time when many Republicans are clamoring for Mr. Ryan to agree to be the next House Speaker, a noisy band of conservatives — mostly talk-radio hosts and other media figures outside the Capitol — have been vilifying him for being too moderate."

"It is a through-the-looking-glass political phenomenon that speaks volumes about how the Republican Party has changed in recent years. The fiscal issues Mr. Ryan has long championed have taken a back seat to social litmus test issues like immigration in activist circles. And his skills at negotiating big budget deals, once admired, are now regarded with suspicion by conservatives who shun compromise."

"What is not clear is how far the anti-Ryan insurrection will reach into the ranks of House Republicans, the people who will be voting on the next speaker. Rep. Matt Salmon of Arizona, a member of the House Freedom Caucus — a conservative faction that pressured Mr. Boehner out of the job and threatened to block Mr. McCarthy’s rise — said he was not concerned about Mr. Ryan’s policy views or about the criticism of outside groups."

"Mr. Salmon said his main goal is to press any potential speaker to open up the House’s internal process and make it more inclusive. “It could very well be Paul Ryan,” Mr. Salmon said Thursday."

"But it is far from clear whether Mr. Ryan can be persuaded by party elders to take the speaker’s job. He has said repeatedly he does not want it. And it is now clear that the job would surely expose him to even more to slings and arrows from an unaccustomed direction: his right flank."

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/10/16/paul-ryan-under-fire-from-an-unaccustomed-direction-the-right/

It seems to me that if Ryan is smart he won't want any such 'opening of the internal process' if this is just code words for weakening the Speaker's role. He seems to me to be smart.

A lobbyist close to Ryan had this to say:

One lobbyist close to Ryan dismissed what he called the “Goofball Caucus.”

“These guys don’t believe in democracy,” the lobbyist said. “They believe, ‘OK I got elected in some Podunk district and I should control the agenda, because people I talk to agree with me.'”

If the House Freedom Caucus presents Ryan with the list of 10 demands they gave McCarthy, the lobbyist said, “Paul will say, ‘We will give you your chance to give your point of view, but if that’s not the majority view then you stick with us on procedure.’”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/ryan-speaker-record-ways-means-214859#ixzz3oktXAGbd

Sounds like some good leadership instincts he would bring to the job. But can you win in today's GOP as a good leader?