Blue Color Guy Running Agains Paul Ryan
Can Paul Ryan Be Defeated? Maybe Not, but His Race Is 'a Circus'
JANESVILLE, Wis. — When dozens of high school students from beyond Wisconsin marched through his hometown, chanting his name and enervating new gun command laws, Paul D. Ryan, the House speaker, was not around to hear them, having just wrapped upward a trip to the Czech Commonwealth.
Simply Randy Bryce was.
Mr. Bryce, for those who don't watch MSNBC, is ameliorate known by his Twitter handle, "Fe Stache" — a nod to his occupation (ironworker) and his thick horseshoe mustache. A Democrat, he has become a liberal media darling of sorts, as he seeks to do the unthinkable: unseat Mr. Ryan in Wisconsin's First Congressional District this fall.
But Mr. Bryce is not the but candidate hoping to dethrone a congressional king. Another Democrat, a schoolteacher named Cathy Myers, is also running for her party's nomination. She is irked that national Democrats and progressives — including Senator Bernie Sanders, the onetime presidential candidate — have thrown their weight behind Mr. Bryce.
And on the right, Republicans are against an embarrassing spectacle: A white nationalist and anti-Semite, Paul Nehlen, who lost to Mr. Ryan by 68 points in the 2022 Republican chief, is running again, this time flaunting his bigotry to gain a national following. His Twitter account was suspended in February afterward he used it to make racist comments about Meghan Markle, the fiancée of Prince Harry.
"It's a circus," sighed Mark Graul, a seasoned Republican strategist here. "You lot can't make this stuff upwardly."
Mr. Ryan, meanwhile, has been coy well-nigh his intentions. After passing a landmark revenue enhancement overhaul that fulfilled a career-long dream, he has non yet appear his candidacy for re-election, saying he will brand a decision after consulting with his married woman in the spring. That has prompted speculation that he will retire, which his aides have dismissed as nonsense.
In another election twelvemonth, Mr. Bryce and the rest might be little more than a nuisance for Mr. Ryan, who has nearly $10 1000000 in his campaign chest and is one of the nearly powerful men in Washington. Mr. Nehlen, strategists in both parties concur, is clearly headed for some other trouncing.
Epitome
But in an ballot bicycle when Democrats have scored victories in places like Virginia, southwestern Pennsylvania and fifty-fifty deep-ruby-red Alabama, some analysts say it would be a error for the speaker to coast, particularly against Mr. Bryce, who has captured the attention of Washington and Hollywood and had raised $four.75 million by the terminate of March, co-ordinate to campaign officials.
History shows it is not impossible to knock off a congressional leader. In 1994, when Republicans swept the Firm during the first midterm election of Nib Clinton's presidency, they as well swept the Democratic speaker, Thomas S. Foley, out of office.
"Randy Bryce is a more than formidable candidate on the resource side and the notoriety side than whatever opponent Ryan has faced," said Charles Franklin, manager of the Marquette Law Schoolhouse Poll, run out of Milwaukee. "And if it'southward a wave ballot, who knows?"
At 48, Mr. Ryan has represented this corner of southeastern Wisconsin for almost two decades. People here yet remember him every bit a fresh-faced young congressman with a compelling personal story. His father died when he was 16, and he saved his Social Security benefits to pay for higher. He is viewed equally a nice guy and a family unit man.
But Janesville, a blue-collar community that was striking difficult when the local General Motors plant shut down in 2009, has never been solid Ryan territory, and some in his hometown say that since he became speaker — and especially since President Trump took the White House — Mr. Ryan has lost his mode. He was disquisitional of Mr. Trump during the campaign. He largely holds his natural language now.
"I'm very disappointed in him," Steve Johnson, 69, a former Janesville School District administrator, said while drinking coffee with a friend at Mocha Moment, a local cafe. Mr. Johnson, who says he votes Republican about half of the time, has known the speaker since Mr. Ryan was a educatee council representative, and has voted for him for years.
"He always had a proficient head on his shoulders, a good set of values," Mr. Johnson said. "I supported him for all this time, but I won't at present, especially since he won't stand to Trump. That's a big surprise to me."
Others complain that Mr. Ryan no longer holds town-hall-manner meetings (his aides say he hosts phone call-ins where constituents can voice their concerns) and spends more time outside the district than in it.
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"He'due south but changed so much from the beginning of his career until now," said Chris Rice, 68, a Democrat who works in health care. "I think he's lost his values."
Merely Mr. Ryan retains potent back up elsewhere in the commune, especially in rural areas and counties like Waukesha, Walworth and Racine. His Republican backers insist that the speaker volition be only fine, especially in the wake of the passage of the landmark tax overhaul, which he has been promoting during carefully controlled visits to businesses hither and around the country.
"Ever since I've known Paul, tax reform was near and dear to his heart," said Kim Travis, who represents Mr. Ryan'southward district on the executive committee of the Wisconsin Republican Party. "So to go that passed is huge. I don't think any of his opponents stand a gamble."
The most recent Marquette Law School poll found that, statewide, 46 per centum of voters approve of Mr. Ryan, while 39 percent disapprove and 15 percent say they have not heard plenty nigh him. And his aides note that the local economic system has bounced back. The latest state figures evidence unemployment in Rock County, which includes Janesville, is at 3.6 pct. Information technology was 13.2 percent in 2009, the year the motorcar found closed.
Even so, some political observers are seeing cracks in the speaker'due south armor. Stan Milam, a longtime Janesville journalist and former radio host, said that neither Mr. Bryce nor Ms. Myers has what it takes to trounce Mr. Ryan this year. But he does encounter the speaker showing some signs of weakness.
"Every politician, if they have a lengthy political career, becomes more than vulnerable than usual," Mr. Milam said, "and I believe that'southward where Paul Ryan is."
Fifty-fifty Democrats concede that capitalizing on that will exist an uphill battle. For one thing, they are fighting among themselves. In Washington, the Autonomous Congressional Entrada Committee has targeted Mr. Ryan'south commune to flip from Republican to Democratic. Many here see Ms. Myers, who at present holds a seat on the Janesville School Board, picking up steam.
Her backers view Mr. Bryce equally a creation of Hollywood and the national news media, and insist she is the more noun candidate. They vow a strong grass-roots campaign.
Epitome
"No one has been able to respond this for me: Why is Randy Bryce a better candidate to beat Paul Ryan?" Ms. Myers asked in an interview. "I'm talking about his qualifications, non his coin."
Mr. Bryce, 53, a longtime union activist who has waged 3 previous unsuccessful bids for local and state office, is pitching himself to voters as a man of the people, a kind of Joe Six-Pack who understands their everyday concerns. An Regular army veteran and a survivor of testicular cancer, he outburst onto the political scene with a video campaign annunciation that went viral.
In it, he offered to trade places with Mr. Ryan, declaring, "Yous can come work the iron, and I'll go to D.C."
The video captured the attention of national Democrats, and some in Hollywood. The liberal comedian Chelsea Handler hosted a $500-a-plate fund-raiser for Mr. Bryce, where she was pictured wearing a false mustache.
But he has some baggage, which Ms. Myers and Republicans will undoubtedly try to exploit. He was belatedly repaying a loan to an ex-girlfriend, and for well-nigh two years he owed $1,257 in back kid support, which he paid after launching his campaign.
"I'm looking forward to that coming upwardly; that'due south why I'grand running," he said in an interview. "I've busted my rear end for the by 20 years to keep my head to a higher place h2o. That's proof that I empathize what it's similar to struggle."
On the day the students marched last calendar week through Janesville, demanding that Mr. Ryan have strong activeness on gun command, Mr. Bryce was among hundreds of people who turned upwards at a rally that was rife with anti-Ryan sentiment. Dressed in jeans, piece of work boots and a pigment-splattered, browbeaten-up chocolate-brown work jacket, he hung back in the crowd, listening quietly as they shouted "Shame on Paul! Shame on Paul!"
When the speeches were over, he posed for selfies with the students and was mobbed by well-wishers. Among them was Teri Sickels, 59, a onetime assembly line worker who, like many here, was forced into retirement when the General Motors manufactory closed down.
"I love everything y'all stand for," she gushed.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/us/politics/paul-ryan-reelection-campaign-randy-bryce-paul-nehlen.html
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