Former House Speaker Paul Ryan has been floating a fantasy view about American politics.
Recently, Ryan was quoted as saying, “The person who defines that race is going to win the race. If this is about Donald Trump and his personality, he isn’t going to win it.”
In the face of blowback among Trump supporters, Ryan took to Twitter to explain his remarks.
“To be clear, GOP wins elections when they’re about ideas not when they’re personality contests like Dems & media want,” he wrote. “We’re clearly better off because of @RealDonaldTrump.” “His record of accomplishment is why he’ll win re-election especially when compared to Dems’ leftward lurch.”
To be clear, GOP wins elections when they’re about ideas not when they’re personality contests like Dems & media want. We’re clearly better off because of @RealDonaldTrump. His record of accomplishment is why he’ll win re-election especially when compared to Dems’ leftward lurch.
— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) March 13, 2019
This theory that elections are won by the party that has the best ideas is a nice fairy tale that some politicians and pundits like to tell themselves, but it’s completely at odds with reality.
Is it really Ryan’s contention that Trump emerged from a field of 17 Republican candidates and eventually won the presidency, not because of his personality, but because of his ideas?
Does anybody think if Tim Pawlenty had espoused the same ideas as Trump he would be sitting in the Oval Office right now?
True, it’s always important to articulate a vision, and the most successful candidates, such as Ronald Reagan, manage to merge a charismatic personality with a set of ideas.
But pointing to Trump’s election over Hillary Clinton as an example of ideas triumphing over personality is just absurd.
Not to mention the fact that it has entered Republican folklore that Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 was all style over substance, and he was re-elected four years later when Ryan was on the Republican ticket.
