The media managed to cripple Chris Christie’s presidential prospects by hyping the Bridgegate spectacle, leaving no obvious frontrunner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. After eight years of Obama, voters are likely to be in the mood for a responsible grownup — someone who will take a sober look at our deteriorating situation and respond to it with reasonable solutions, rather than adolescent rhetoric and class warfare posturing.
Assuming he is interested in running, this could put Paul Ryan in an excellent position. The contrast between him and the obnoxiously buffoonish Joe Biden in the 2012 vice presidential debate established Ryan in the public mind as a calm adult among unruly children.
Romney chose him as a running mate largely due to his budget expertise. With the national debt already having shot past $17 trillion, this is an issue that any responsible candidate will need to address in 2016.
Ryan’s conservative credentials are not entirely solid. He is at best soft on amnesty, which alone could destroy his chances in the primaries. He voted for the unpopular TARP bailout. Regarding social issues, he supports gay adoption, despite the danger this has posed to children. If he is to secure the nomination, he will have to do it on the strength of his budget expertise.
That means the current budget plan battle could present a threat any presidential plans:
The budget plan is a largely symbolic detailing of the party’s priorities. Past versions have rallied House Republicans around proposals for significant spending cuts and for reshaping Medicare and other entitlements.
But this year it is unclear if the plan Mr. Ryan, the Budget Committee chairman, writes can win approval in the House.
Democrats are unlikely to back it and the plan could lose significant Republican support if, as expected, it sticks to a spending level for next year negotiated by the Wisconsin Republican.
Last December, 62 House Republicans voted against the two-year spending deal that Mr. Ryan reached with Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D., Wash.), because it temporarily loosened spending caps.
That deal set the total amount to be spent on annual appropriations at $1.012 trillion for the current fiscal year and $1.014 trillion for the following year.
To move a budget through the House, Republicans would need to persuade almost 50 GOP lawmakers who balked at the Murray-Ryan deal to support a budget that incorporates it—no easy task in an election year.
Most Republicans realize that only by a sharp reduction in the federal government’s profligate spending can we avoid a severe economic crisis in the near future. No one seen as conspiring with the somewhat flaky leftist Patty Murray to maintain the current spree is likely to prevail in the primaries while campaigning primarily on economic matters.
It might be just as well if Ryan sets his sights instead on becoming Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, a powerful position that is almost in his grasp.
