House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) “will not accept a nomination” for president from the Republican Party in the case of a contested convention, his spokesperson said Wednesday.
Ryan’s spokesman said that the speaker thinks the nominee “should be someone who ran this year,” according to NBC News’ Alex Moe:
Post Boehner news, Paul Ryan spox: “He will not accept a nomination and believes our nominee should be someone who ran this year.” #2016
— Alex Moe (@AlexNBCNews) March 16, 2016
His predecessor, John Boehner (R-OH), floated the possibility of a Ryan nomination at a Wednesday conference in Boca Raton, Florida, according to a Politico report.
“They all had a chance to win. None of them won. So I’m for none of the above,” Boehner said. “I’m for Paul Ryan to be our nominee.”
He’d be crazy to accept the nomination when he did not run for it. Can you imagine the Trump crowd’s or Cruz crowd’s reaction, after all the effort they put into the primary races, to dumping them and appointing this spoiled political brat ?
This could be read either way-that he’s ruling himself out or that he’s playing the same coy game he played gaining the Speakership: refuse, get a sweeter offer, refuse again. Repeat this until the pols are beside themselves and offering everything w/o strings, then magnanimously accept because, you know patriotism.
It beats working.
Spokesperson adds:
There’s no downside to saying this. It doesn’t preclude him from accepting the nomination in July and he gets to look honorable in the meantime. And yes, “look honorable” should be in quotation marks.
My take is he’s playing the same coy game. Time will tell.