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Paul Ryan and those in his close-knit political orbit have long shunned prognosticating about the speaker’s political ambitions. Young kids. Unpredictable political climate. And the speakership is a tough job.
But the speaker’s allies have become keenly aware of his precarious political future, the daunting challenge of governing under a President Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, and the rough task of rebuilding a GOP that many Hill Republicans believe has been overrun by anti-free trade populists who favor bombastic bomb-throwing over thoughtful policy discussions. All while weighing the possibility of his own bid for president, which Ryan did not rule out in a speech on Wednesday.
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Whether he goes that route or not, Ryan is likely in for a tumultous next few years. If Trump wins and Ryan retains the speakership, the Wisconsin Republican will be forced to continue to wedge his positions into Trump’s alternate Republican universe.
If Clinton wins, Ryan will have to preside over a slimmed Republican majority, more heavily populated with burn-the-house-down conservatives. He’ll have to cut deals and do business with Hillary Clinton — a woman he’s met with privately just twice — while at the same time keeping conservatives content.
It’s a governing scenario that people close to him are beginning to envision, according to multiple sources in his political orbit — and not a particularly pleasant one.
Indeed, the challenge for Ryan of selling a policy agenda and building out his vision of the Republican Party, while dealing with the whack-a-mole nature of everyday governance, is daunting.
“I think at the end of the day, it will be Paul Ryan’s biggest challenge,” Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) said of rebuilding the Republican brand while governing the House.
Ryan’s “Better Way” policy agenda is aimed at giving House Republicans an election-year message, but it has barely registered on a national scale, according to a recently released Morning Consult poll. Fifteen percent of voters think it’s a Republican plan, and an equal number believe it came out of the White House or Nancy Pelosi’s office.
Ryan is already quietly beginning to plot a GOP revival strategy, according to multiple sources familiar with his operation’s planning. He’s planning a series of public rallies this fall to help his House colleagues, a mission aimed at keeping his majority and boosting his brand of conservatism. It’s an extraordinarily rare role for a House speaker — a figure who’s typically more of a liability than an asset.
And the drumbeat of election-season policy speeches in New York and Washington is a purposeful attempt to ensure him a prominent voice in the policy discussion. On Thursday, he’ll be at The Atlantic’s Washington Ideas Festival for his second policy-focused event of the week.
Yet even if Ryan won’t openly say it, and no matter how much he tries to train attention on policy, he knows it won't be long before he'll be under pressure to decide his own political future. The Wisconsin Republican is noncommittal on whether he’ll run for the White House — or if he’s even considering it — but is notably not dousing the possibility.
“You never say never to these things,” he said at the Economic Club of Washington on Wednesday, “but I’ve never really had this ambition.” He added, “I have presidential-size policy ambition. I’ve really never had presidential-size personal ambition. It just was never really in my DNA.”
The presidential speculation is not surprising given his meteoric rise. He was elected to Congress at 29, became Budget Committee chairman by 41, was the vice presidential nominee at 42, then speaker at 46. He’s defied political gravity throughout much of that time: In the early days of the GOP majority, the National Republican Congressional Committee and senior members of the GOP leadership balked at his proposals to cut federal spending, warning of steep political liabilities as Democrats ran against the much-vilified “Ryan budget.” Ryan pressed on, and the GOP majority grew, as did his own prominence.
In less than a year as speaker, he’s amassed a fundraising operation that has surpassed John Boehner’s very formidable one. Though his push to pass a budget and appropriations bills was stymied by competing factions within his conference, Ryan has avoided the kind of public legislative brawls that damaged Boehner so badly. On Wednesday night, Ryan was on the brink of pushing through a government-funding bill without much of a struggle.
Of course, speculation is always rampant about Ryan's standing in the House. Inside the Republican Conference, there's private musing about whether he’ll even run again for speaker. Some conservatives have started pressuring him for changes to internal GOP rules.
And the political climate next year is already looking grim.
“You’re going to get a very unpopular president … and you’re going to have a smaller yet more conservative House majority,” said one former House GOP leadership staffer. “The margin for error for Republican leaders is going to be so so thin, particularly with the motion to vacate” — the mechanism conservatives used to instigate Boehner’s ouster — “still hanging out there.”
“It will be difficult for them to do the basics of governing, from funding the government to reauthorizing noncontroversial programs,” the person said.
Ryan’s allies say he won’t be held hostage. Some of them say he’d be better off politically not running for speaker, with all the day-to-day trench warfare involved. But for now, Ryan isn’t going anywhere.
“He intends to continue serving this team as speaker in the next Congress,”· Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck said.
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