Rep. Tom Reed hopes Paul Ryan takes over as speaker

Publicly, he’s still a no. “Nothing has changed on his position”.

“Before you ask, nothing has changed and I don’t anticipate any news this week”, tweeted Brendan Buck, Rep. Ryan’s communications director, early Monday morning. Mr. Ryan, the last GOP candidate for vice-president, is perfectly happy in his role as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and probably even happier with the constant buzz about him being a future presidential nominee. But there’s no obvious alternative or predictable end to the tumult that’s rocked the House since September 25, when Boehner, R-Ohio, unexpectedly announced he’ll resign later this month.

Freedom Caucus leader Jim Jordan hinted that conservatives could back Ryan if he supports their agenda to take a few powers away from the Republican leadership in the House.

The Republicans right now have the largest majority in Congress that they have ever had. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article.

That dynamic, Paul said, is why Republicans are having a tough time finding a durable Speaker.

“This took everyone by surprise”, Nicole Sandler from radio Sputnik’s BradCast said while discussing the recent Republican scandal – or what she called a “soup opera in Washington DC” – with Huffington Post Washington Bureau Chief Ryan Grim. Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, which claims hundreds of chapters around the country, said Ryan represents “business as usual”. This Republican demanded anonymity to discuss private considerations. The post became much more hyper-partisan and that trend continued through years of Democratic and Republican speakerships alike.

Freedom Caucus members insist that their goal is not to get a speaker who is necessarily as conservative as they are.

Q: What is the Freedom Caucus?

“They really had a lot of concerns about procedure and tactics and things like that, the same sorts of things that you see today”, University of Virginia Prof. About that same proportion are from the South and Southwest. They tried to avoid debate over what conservatism means and whether compromise is acceptable.

Q: What do they want? No federal funding for Planned Parenthood. There’s certainly no reason to believe they will get better anytime soon. While King hasn’t endorsed any candidates yet, he says he’s got his eye on Ted Cruz. They also want GOP leaders to stop punishing them for rebellious votes.

Ryan’s budget proposals in the Obama era are beloved by many in the conservative movement, but his right-wing credentials were less than sterling a decade ago. And one Democrat, Christian Cano, says the Republicans have their hands full.

In 1963, in fact, then-Speaker John McCormack briefly (and incorrectly) though the mantle of the presidency had passed to him because it was mistakenly thought that both Vice President Lyndon Johnson, along with President John F Kennedy, had been killed. U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul is also mulling a run, a source close to him confirmed.

Other, more powerful Republicans began expressing interest in the speakership after McCarthy dropped out, and there seems to be broad consensus among the House GOP that Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., would be a good candidate.