WASHINGTON — ALAS, in August we lost a most desirable candidate
for the White House, one that is not charismatic, did not write (or
have someone else write) his memoir, has displayed no jump shot in
public, and did not leave important documents on his desk while
gallivanting around the country in the campaign mode and heading
for vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. In the first instance I am
talking about Congressman Paul Ryan. In the second I am talking
about President you-know-who. Since the day he was inaugurated he
has been campaigning for his second term, all the while expressing
ambivalence about wanting a second term. That is nonsense. He is
living rent-free and has that big airplane to fly about the country
in.
Ryan has now declared that he is inalterably not seeking the
Republican nomination. He did it despite pressure from Karl Rove
and Governor Mitch Daniels and after a long hike on the countryside
with Bill Bennett, the corpulent ex-Reagan cabinet official. On
second thought, the hike could not have been that long. The last
time I saw Bennett, a long hike would have been
life-threatening.
Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, took his name
out of the race with characteristic seriousness. “I sincerely
appreciate the support from those eager to chart a brighter future
for the next generation,” he declared. “While humbled by the
encouragement, I have not changed my mind, and therefore I am not
seeing our party’s nomination for President.” There was not much
charisma here. He is not running.
Yet, why did he say after a recent Republican debate that, “I
just have yet to see a strong and principled articulation of the
kind of limited government, opportunity-society path that we would
provide as an alternative to the Obama cradle-to-grave welfare
state”? I thought then he was going to run. Does he have someone
else in mind?
He already has an alternative budget to campaign against Obama
with whenever Obama presents a budget. It passed the house. It
strikes at the heart of our current budgetary impasse, taking on
entitlements and the huge cancer that Obama introduced into our
polity against the public’s wishes, Obamacare. Ryan is the natural
opponent of Obama. He has the demonstrated intellectual leadership
that would make him a powerful force on the campaign trail, to say
nothing of in debate.
Moreover he has the economic message that a potent constituency
out there wants to hear, the independents. In 2010 the independent
vote swarmed to Republicans. Today the independents show every sign
of sticking with the Republicans for years to come, because they
are essentially concerned about pocket-book issues and it is clear
that Democrats are not. Democrats are advocates of high taxes,
regulations, and the nanny state. The independent vote has
demonstrated that it is pro-growth. The independents are Ryan
independents.
They do not care if a president wrote a lovely memoir or did not
write it. They do not care about his jump shot. They are coming to
my opinion on charisma. It is entertaining, but in these times we
need something beyond entertainment. We need policies that will get
American growing again.
That brings us to those documents that Obama left sitting on his
desk. During his mid-August campaign swing through the Midwest he
complained repeatedly that there were three free-trade agreements
with Korea, Colombia, and Panama pending in Congress. Sending them
on to the President, the Wall Street Journal reports Obama
as saying, Congress “could do right now,” save for the
congressional obduracy. And then the Journal reports
Congress cannot pass the agreements, because they are “still
sitting on the President’s desk.” Someone overlooked them, but the
Journal says they are there. I would like to know how this little
mishap gets worked out.
In the meantime, if Ryan has “yet to see a strong and principled
articulation of the kind of limited government, opportunity-society
path that we would provide as an alternative to the Obama
cradle-tograve welfare state,” does he have anyone else in mind. It
is getting late.
