The Paul Ryan for President thing keeps haunting conservative dreams because the
They won't wrap a wreath of garlic around its neck. They will not burn it with fire and sulfur. So by not killing it, they give it life, as they whisper, whisper, whisper.
And so it breathes, this Ryan Nosferatu, wandering out there in the dim political half light where operatives do their work.
Ryan, the speaker of the U.S. House, says he does not want to be the Republican nominee for president, but he also refuses to categorically rule it out. It's a game.
So would the establishment like to bring Ryan into the sunshine of
It's a theory. Only that. But if the Republican establishment had a choice, they'd cling to Ryan since he's one of their own. Establishments don't die easily and the way this political year has gone, you'll see the establishment scorch the earth before they give up.
Ryan is no conservative, though he plays one on TV. He's a kinda-sorta conservative, the type the
But he's also the kind of politician who goes along with raising the federal debt ceiling and feeding the federal leviathan, and those aren't remotely conservative positions.
Yet as the
The Republican establishment fears and hates billionaire
They loathe
Neither man is acceptable to them. Millions have been spent to make Cruz toxic and Trump downright poisonous.
Yes, they did momentarily support Cruz -- using him to stop Trump in
Now that a brokered convention is all but assured, the search is on for a fresh face.
Those exact words, "fresh" and "face," came out of the mouth of
Like my own, Rove's face isn't exceptionally fresh. Mine is somewhat like a side of beef with a broken nose stuck in the middle. But Rove's is rather like a boneless Krakus ham -- the salty kind that comes in a can from
So on the conservative "Hugh Hewitt Show" on the Salem Radio Network, the ham talked about the negatives of the two front-runners and the appeal a "fresh face" might offer if that face was deemed conservative enough.
"... It's somebody who has, you know, has those convictions that they can express in a compelling way, we could come out of the convention in relatively strong position, because we do have, you know, look --
"And a fresh face might be the thing that could give us a chance to turn this election and win in November against Hillary."
Would Cruz's conservatives revolt? Yes. Would Trump's economic nationalists revolt? Yes. But the establishment would dangle the specter of
Meanwhile, Ryan subtly encourages the whispers, while publicly saying he's not interested.
"No, I'm not that fresh face," Ryan told
You think your face is somewhat fresh?
We'll see. In
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John Kass is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune who also hosts a radio show on WLS-AM.