Please let’s not get overconfident about the election in the Wisconsin First Congressional District. There have already been emails and postings that Paul Ryan quit because he was afraid of the campaign being waged by one of Blogging Blue’s favorite candidates: Randy Bryce. There have been dozens of post-mortems on why Ryan quit, but Randy isn’t the main reason, ever.
And despite the fact that rumored heavy weight contenders like Wisconsin Legislative Speaker Robin Vos and former RNC chair and former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus have said they aren’t running…the GOP will pull out a serious contender before too long.
So let’s not pat ourselves on the back. Ryan will be gone soon but there will still be a race in a very red gerrymandered district. And we will still need to contribute to the Bryce campaign and we will still need to get out the vote. And without Ryan in the race, we may not get the national attention that we’ve been getting until now when we get to the August primary.
So by all means celebrate Ryan’s departure. But let’s not gloat in our literature or postings or speeches. He didn’t leave out of fear of us.
full disclosure: I have contributed to Mr. Bryce’s campaign.
Just a reminder that in August, 2016, Ron Johnson was a dead man walking, too. Remember how *that* turned out?
Paul Ryan didn’t quit because of Randy Bryce. Paul Ryan sure as heck didn’t quit for his Kids.
Paul Ryan quit for one specific reason, there was zero chance of him remaining as speaker next term. That’s all, nothing else.