December 4, 2015--House Speaker Paul Ryan Steps Out

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, now replete with a Jake Gyllenhaal beard (but still with the Eddie Munster widow's peak) covertly yesterday began his presidential campaign.

Recall, like a blushing bride he had to be coxed to run for Speaker after John Boehner stepped down in frustration, pique, and tears. Now that he senses the GOP field is likely to deadlock next year and not be able to come up with a nominee, he is positioning himself to again be courted to save the Party.

So not in the House of Representative itself but instead in the Library of Congress to give him an aura of gravitas (he has a squeaky voice and looks as if he's just post-adolescent), before a background of Stars and Stripes he gave a preview of how his 2017 Inaugural Address would sound.

Mainly bromides like tax reform (more cuts for the top 5 percent), ending Obamacare and replacing it with (inadequate) subsidies for the uninsured to buy private medical insurance, reforms (read cuts) in the Social Safety Nets, and a muscular foreign policy designed to win the war against ISIS.

He's betting that hanging back and pretending not to be interested in anything but tax policy and spending time with his children back in Wisconsin worked to get him to be second in line from the presidency and that playing the same rope-a-dope again will propel him into the White House next year.

Keep and eye on that widow's peak--if it gets lazared away he's really running.