When 65-year-old House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohi0) announced his retirement Sept. 25, it was all but a done-deal who would succeed him. Groomed as his successor, House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was all-but-certain to replace Boehner until he spilled the beans Sept. 28 talking to Fox News Sean Hannity on national TV. McCarthy gleefully admitted that the House Select Committee on Benghazi, led by 51-year-old Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) did its job of discrediting former Secretary of State and Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2016 campaign. McCarthy’s gaffe was so egregious it prompted Gowdy say publicly that, “Kevin screwed up.” Once McCarthy withdrew his name Oct. 7, the GOP scrambled to find a suitable replacement. Only one man, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), made any sense.
Ryan now faces a fateful decision rescuing the GOP, accepting the position as House Speaker, despite its growing high-wire act. Boehner had difficulty containing the new breed of uncompromising conservatives, insisting on a religious and socially conservative agenda. Boehner tried but failed to indulge the so-called Freedom Caucus led by 51-year-old Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) who gave Boehner fits, threatening to default the U.S. government over Obamacare in 2013. Ryan, a favorite of the House’s Tea Party, doesn’t know whether or not he has the stomach to deal Jordan’s demands while trying to lead the GOP House to get anything done. Jordan’s Freedom Caucus, pushed for 66-year-old Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fl.) for Speaker, knowing he’d let evangelicals call the shots. While Ryan holds many conservative views, he’s not willing to cede power to any one group.
Ryan joined former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s 2012 ticket, promptly alienating mainstream voters with talk of reforming Medicare and Social Security. Ryan learned the hard way, the rough-and-tumble of presidential politics, quickly buttoning his lips before inflicting more damage on Romney’s campaign. Ryan played a big part in the Oct. 1, 2013 government shutdown, where conservatives tried to blackmail the government into repealing Obamacare. After McCarthy withdrew, Ryan faced crushing pressure to rescues the GOP. When Boehner announced his retirement, Ryan emphatically rejected the idea of seeking House Speaker, expressing satisfaction with his job as Chairman of the tax-writing Ways-and-Means Committee. “People have defined him as the only possible hope,” said former Rep.Vin Weber (R-Minn.), urging his friend to take the job.
Ryan likes his relatively low-profile job as Ways-and-Means Committee Chairman, shying away from the more political House Speaker. As House Speaker, Ryan would be in the forefront to Washington’s most controversial decisions, frequently asked to appear on national TV talk shows. Despite the current GOP majority, Ryan watched Boehner slug-it-out with Jordan’s Freedom Caucus, eventually pushing him into retirement. If Ryan doesn’t set the parameters with Jordan, he’ll have little autonomy as House Speaker. “If you do it right, I think you can write your ticket,” said former Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.). “But there are no guarantees her because you can’t control all the variables,” warning Ryan about acquiescing to any one group’s demands. Ryan doesn’t know what lurks ahead as obstacles caused by the House’s most conservative factions fighting it out.
Boehner tried to lead in the spirit of the late House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill (D-Mass.) who tried to during the conservative Reagan years to work constructively with the White House. Despite a regular golf-buddy with President Barack Obama, Boehner found himself frequently opposing most of Obama’s legislative agenda. “We need someone who’s going to disrupt the system,” said Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots. Since taking office Jan. 20, 2009, Obama faced stiff ideological opposition against his major legislative agenda called the Patent Protection and Affordable Care, AKA Obamacare. Since signing Obamacare into law March 23, 2010, the GOP’s most extreme right wing opposed almost everything in the president’s agenda. If Ryan takes the House Speaker, he doesn’t want to be seen as the GOP’s main obstructionist.
Ryan’s decision to accept as House Speaker requires House religious and social conservatives to cut him the slack needed to do his job. Jordan talked of decentralizing the House Speaker’s power, something that would make the House even more ungovernable than it is today. Unlike Boehner, Ryan’s one of the most highly ranked House conservatives, prompting a consensus to lead the House. Ryan needs to put Jordan and the Freedom Caucus on notice that if he accepts the job, he’ll do it his way, with all the rights, privileges and obligations that comes with the job. “Anyone
making deals, who wants to move things forward is considered an enemy collaborator,” said former Rep. David Hobson (R-Ohio), warning Ryan to only take House Speaker if he has the autonomy needed to follow his conscience, work with the opposing party and get the peoples’ work done.
