WASHINGTON, D.C. — Outgoing Speaker of the House John Boehner has set a date for the election to decide his replacement. All eyes are now on Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), as in the last few days it has become increasingly clear that he may be the only candidate in the entire Republican conference that enough of the various factions can get behind, which is one of many demands that Ryan has put on his decision to run for Speaker. Ryan has demanded total unity from his conference, including a rule change that would keep him securely in the Speakership without hardliners having any chance to pick him off, should he find himself on their bad side, but another one of Ryan’s condition’s also has some within his party balking.
“I don’t care how, I want it now,” Ryan said to reporters outside his Congressional office early Wednesday morning. He was referring to a goose that lays golden eggs. As a young child, Ryan told the press, he was lucky enough to visit a chocolate factory run by an eccentric candy man. Ryan was a contest winner, and even though he TV so much at the time, he was able to pry himself away from the set, meaning young Paul — who also went by the nickname “Mike” because all his friends said he looked more like a Mike than a Paul — go the opportunity of a lifetime, and it left quite an impression on him.
Ryan said that though he didn’t win the contest for ownership of the factory, he wasn’t sad about it all these years later. He says that losing that contest helped prepare him for losing abysmally in 2012 as one half of a Mitt Romney presidential ticket that sputtered its way to an embarrassing landslide of a defeat. “I was sure bummed about losing the contest and having to be restored to my original size that day,” Rep. Ryan told the media, “but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about one of those golden egg laying geese we saw that day. I want one, and I’ll have one, or they can find another speaker.”
“I was on board with a lot of his demands,” Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who was the heir apparent for the speakership until his abrupt exit from the race after controversial and damaging comments about the political nature of his party’s Benghazi hearings, “but this golden egg laying goose business is a bridge too far.” McCarthy says that he hopes Ryan will reconsider because Republicans “don’t even know which damn country that factory was in since everyone around it spoke in eight million different dialects and the currency looked completely fake from what we could see.” McCarthy says Ryan should pare his demands down to the more “traditional leadership perks” like extra lobbyist donations for his campaign.
For his part, Ryan says the golden egg laying goose is as “non-negotiable” as the family time he is demanding as well. “Just because I work tirelessly to give employers the right to fire people if they need too much family time, and just because I envision a world where poor people don’t have family time because they have to work seven jobs to stay afloat,” Ryan said as the press conference was coming to a close, “that doesn’t mean I can’t and won’t demand that I get to have family time. I mean, this is why we Republicans warn you about the hypocrisy of government officials. Takes one to know one, know what I’m saying?”
The election for the new Speaker will take place on October 29th, 2015, and Ryan is demanding total loyalty from the major Republican caucuses by then.
