Could This Guy Be the Eventual GOP Nominee?
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) doesn’t want to be President of the United States—at least not yet—if you have read the numerous, and sometimes exasperated, denials in the mainstream media.
So, if he doesn’t want the job, why are so many establishment Republicans insisting he should be the GOP nominee? Here’s just a small sampling from a recent Politico article titled “Top Republicans talking up Paul Ryan as nominee“:
One of the nation’s best-wired Republicans, with an enviable prediction record for this cycle, sees a 60 percent chance of a convention deadlock and a 90 percent chance that delegates turn to Ryan — ergo, a 54 percent chance that Ryan, who’ll start the third week of July as chairman of the Republican National Convention, will end it as the nominee.
But he doesn’t want the job, right? The same article attempts to answer that question:
Ryan, who’s more calculating and ambitious than he lets on, is running the same playbook he did to become Speaker: saying he doesn’t want it, that it won’t happen. In both cases, the maximum leverage is to NOT WANT IT – and to be begged to do it. He and his staff are trying to be as Shermanesque as it gets.
For those who would prefer the establishment not pick the nominee, there are two alternatives: either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz wins the nomination outright prior to the convention, or they find a way to mend fences and build an anti-establishment coalition.
