Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Will Paul Ryan make matters worse for House conservatives?

By Rob Janicki

Contrary to Ryan's well scrubbed middle west boy next door looks, lurks a politician as cagy as they come.  Why do you think it has taken Ryan so long to decide whether to actually run for the Speakership of the House? Ryan is not what he may appear to be, despite the fact that he's from the Wisconsin dairyland.  He is not a consistent conservative and that is obvious from his voting record in recent years.

It's being reported that Ryan wants to make lobbyist David Hoppe his chief of staff, should he be elected Speaker of the House.  Granted that Ryan's choice is a personal friend and also from Wisconsin, Ryan's home state, but the optics of having a lobbyist as chief of staff should be a warning to all.  

Hoppe is affiliated with the Bipartisan Policy Center, which is reported to lean left.  The BPC is funded by a cadre of wealthy left wingers, including the president and co-founder of the Bipartisan Policy Center.  Regardless, it's not a conservative think tank and may well account for at least some of Ryan's crossover political policy initiatives in recent years.

The point to be made is that Ryan is not all that his public persona may appear to be and that will be revealed very early in his Speakership.  By that time, however, it will be too late and that's when an explosion of nuclear proportions could easily occur.  Such a conflagration in the current presidential election cycle could be catastrophic to Republican hopes to capturing the White House in January 2017.

Remember when Congressional Republican leadership said they needed to have majorities in both house to do anything?  Then it conveniently became a matter of having super majorities in both houses.  Now the Republican mantra is that they must also concurrently hold the presidency to do anything.  Where will this procrastination and obfuscation end with Republicans and their leadership actually doing something that is consistent with their much heralded conservative political principles?

Perhaps Republicans actually do deserve a Donald Trump to bring them down from their lofty elitist positions.  Unfortunately, America's political system, as we have known it in the past, would crash and not likely survive such a lesson that Republican leadership needs and so richly deserves.

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