WASHINGTON, D.C. — The scramble to replace outgoing Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) is in full-swing, according to sources close to several Republican congresspeople. When Boehner suddenly announced his plans to retire from Congress this month during Pope Francis’ visit to the United States, it was presumed that Boehner’s right-hand and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) would take the reins. Yet, after McCarthy made a serious error in judgment in commenting to Fox News Sean Hannity that the House Benghazi committee had benefited the GOP by hurting Hillary Clinton politically, McCarthy took his name out of consideration, and a full-court press on Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) began from all over the Republican Party.
Initially, Ryan flatly refused to even consider running for the Speakership, but now anonymous sources in his congressional office have leaked word that the 2012 failed Vice-Presidential candidate has tentatively agreed to accept the nomination for Speaker, but with one proviso. According to the Ryan aides, their boss will accept his party’s request to take up the gavel, but only if Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), can beat Ryan in a contest of physical strength. Chaffetz has already officially announced his candidacy, but he is considered to be too aligned with the Tea Party factions of the GOP, so many establishment Republicans are hoping Ryan will accept the position.
“If Rep. Chaffetz can out-bench Rep Ryan,” one Ryan staffer told the press, “then Rep. Ryan would take the job, but not a moment before.” Ryan staffers speaking on the condition of anonymity and protein powder have told the press that the fiscal conservative and de facto economic policy wonk of the right-wing really isn’t all that interested in the Speaker’s position, but he “always totes love a good lift-off,” as one staffer put it. Ryan’s aides also said he considered challenging former Speaker and Democrat Nancy Pelosi to a “clean and jerk” contest, but that he ultimately decided Chaffetz should be his adversary.
“It’s very important to Congressman Ryan that everyone understands how ripped he is,” one staffer told the press, “and being very pro-Second Amendment, he’s always offering people two tickets to a gun show.” The same staffer said that should Ryan accept the nomination and win the House election, he will install several free-weight stations throughout the rotunda, and will put a set of free weights and barbells on the Speaker’s dais itself so that he can “always be sculpting his finely chiseled body.”
Reportedly, one concern that Ryan still has is who will take over the chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee. The congressional group holds many of the purse strings and it was a long-coveted role in government for Ryan, who technically as a Republican hates government itself. However, many of those concerns were allayed when the ghost of Ayn Rand agreed to takeover the post. Ryan reportedly is “pleased as punch that the ghost of the sociopathic, shitty fiction writer that most influenced his economic vision,” agreed to relieve him of his post on the committee according to one of his aides.
“The truth is that Congressman Ryan, like most people with two brain cells to rub together, knows that no matter who takes the job they’ll be maligned by the base, and hamstrung from compromising and therefore governing. It’s a fool’s errand,” one source close to Ryan said, “and so if for some reason Rep. Chaffetz can out-bench Congress’ most ripped rep, then he’ll take the job, otherwise, he’ll just keep his head down and keep writing punishments that are short on working math, but long on demagoguing the poor.”
Mr. Ryan is 45 years old, but the youngest congressman ever elected the Speakership was 30 year old Robert T. Hunter in 1839.
