[bert]

you over look the one salient fact.......

there is no one else besides Ryan with enough support to be elected

[JohnBovenmyer]

If there aren't enough RINOs to elect Ryan and there aren't enough RINOs willing to cross over and elect Pelosi (the de facto RINO fall back position once the primary filing deadlines pass) then there must enough votes to elect some conservative. I'd love Gohmert to run, but will settle for taking his advice. He says that as much as we've had problems with the individual leaders the underlying problem is system gives the leadership too much power. It needs to be reorganized to give more power to individual representatives and bottom up coalitions rather than top down control. Such change would comport with conservative principles and tend to produce more conservative outcomes long term. Louis favors the man who's done such change before, Daniel Webster. He's not been a perfect Conservative, although he defeated a perfect Liberal to take office, but he's not part of the current cartel. And if he can make these changes the conservative caucus would drive the action rather than the Speaker.

[Louis Foxwell]

So the speakership is not a contestable position but is a popularity contest.

[arthurus]

It would be better to simply not have a Speaker than to accede to a Boehner with more drive. With Ryan as with Boehner the Democrats actually run the House and the Speakership is a Democrat Party preserve, indirectly with a puppet nominal Republican.