Scott Walker, Not Paul Ryan, Could Be the GOP's Cleveland Surprise [View all]

[Liberal_in_LA]

The buzz sur­round­ing Paul Ry­an as a GOP pres­id­en­tial nom­in­ee hit a fever pitch this week, after Politico’s Mike Al­len floatedthe pos­sib­il­ity of the House speak­er emer­ging at a con­tested con­ven­tion. But in real­ity, the Re­pub­lic­an more likely to pre­vail in such a scen­ario is an­oth­er Wis­con­sin­ite: Gov. Scott Walk­er.

Ry­an brings sev­er­al un­deni­able as­sets to the con­ven­tion as a pos­sible sleep­er nom­in­ee: He’s well-known na­tion­ally, has the abil­ity to quickly raise funds for a gen­er­al elec­tion, comes from a work­ing-class back­ground, and has ties to both the es­tab­lish­ment and the con­ser­vat­ive grass­roots. But for all his tal­ents, Ry­an has sev­er­al ma­jor vul­ner­ab­il­it­ies as a com­prom­ise nom­in­ee.

For bet­ter or worse, he’s an out­spoken ad­voc­ate of the elite Re­pub­lic­an agenda of en­ti­tle­ment re­form, free trade, and tax-code over­hauls that many Don­ald Trump sup­port­ers have re­jec­ted throughout the primary pro­cess. Turn­ing to a re­spec­ted Hill in­sider like Ry­an will hardly pla­cate the Trump sup­port­ers; it’s more likely to in­furi­ate them. And if you take Ry­an at his word, he doesn’t even want to be pres­id­ent. “I think you need to run for pres­id­ent if you’re go­ing to be pres­id­ent, and I’m not run­ning for pres­id­ent,” Ry­an told talk show host Hugh He­witt on Monday.

Walk­er, by con­trast, openly har­bors na­tion­al am­bi­tions. As Politico’s Scott Bland re­por­ted, the gov­ernor has con­tin­ued to raise money and travel through the 527 or­gan­iz­a­tion used for his pres­id­en­tial cam­paign. He’s main­tained a busy sched­ule out­side of Wis­con­sin, rais­ing money for the party and re­cruit­ing fu­ture gubernat­ori­al pro­spects as vice chair­man of the Re­pub­lic­an Gov­ernors As­so­ci­ation.

http://www.govexec.com/management/2016/04/scott-walker-could-be-gop-cleveland-surprise/127268/