Daniel Larison in The American Conservative magazine :
Why do so many conservative pundits keep urging Rep. Paul Ryan to run for President? Do they really hate him so much that they want to destroy his political career before it goes anywhere? Of course, they aren’t saying this because they hate him, but inexplicably because they believe the architect of a wildly unpopular budget is one of the best available candidates for the Republican nomination...Batting from the left side, John Nichols in The Capital Times:
On top of all this, there is the problem that Ryan is perceived as a one-issue politician, and when we look at his record on that issue we find that he doesn’t actually have very much credibility. As far as most people who know anything him are concerned, he is preoccupied entirely with entitlements and debt. Mitch Daniels just showed how that kind of single-minded focus on fiscal issues actually goes over very badly in the modern GOP, because all of the constituencies need to be appeased, they demand attention, and they become very surly when they don’t get enough of it. What many people don’t know, but will find out if Ryan were crazy enough to run, is that he has not been a very good fiscal conservative in the past. The only reason that I can see why Ryan is being touted as the acceptable alternative is that no one is paying any attention to the rest of his record.
Washington powerbrokers and lobbyists had been counting on Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels to make a run for the party's nod. Daniels, who served as director of George W. Bush's Office of Management and Budget, presided over the policies that expanded deficits in order to provide massive tax breaks to the rich, pay multinational corporations to move jobs out of the U.S., and steer hundreds of billions of dollars into the accounts of inefficient and disreputable defense contractors.Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, Weekly Standard boss William Kristol, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va. all jumped on the Ryan Bandwagon, Nichols notes.
When Daniels decided late Saturday night to acknowledge the obvious — his would have been a ridiculous candidacy — the insiders shifted immediately toward Ryan.
So there will be at least two groups cheering on this "Ryan for President" talk.
Delusional Republicans (and the cynical Republicans who want to use them to grab control of the party apparatus) ... and Democrats who recognize that the only thing better than running against Mitch Daniels would be running against Paul Ryan.
