Ser o no ser candidato

Stephen Hayes nos cuenta más detalles sobre los movimientos de Paul Ryan en Weekly Standard:

But some of the most interesting developments last week took place away from the cameras in the solitude of the Rocky Mountains, where Wisconsin representative Paul Ryan consulted with friends and family about whether he should join the race. Ryan has been quietly looking at a bid for nearly three months, since Indiana governor Mitch Daniels called him to say he wasn’t running. But that consideration took a serious turn over the past two weeks, following a phone call with New Jersey governor Chris Christie in early August.

Ryan and Christie spoke for nearly an hour about the presidential race, according to four sources briefed on the conversation. The two men shared a central concern: The Republican field is not addressing the debt crisis with anything beyond platitudes.

(...) Although the two men have not been especially close personally, their conversation about the campaign was blunt, and they agreed on a central point: If these issues are to get the kind of attention they deserve, one of the two men will have to run. One source called it a de facto pact, but another described it as a more informal understanding. Christie told Ryan what he has (usually) told -others: He does not want to run.

(...) Such things were on Ryan’s mind when he met later that day in his hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin, with Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who stopped by to see Ryan before heading to Ames for the straw poll. According to several sources with knowledge of the meeting, Luntz had included in his polling of the Republican presidential race questions about some prominent Republicans not yet running. When Luntz volunteered to share the results, Ryan, who hadn’t done any polling of his own, agreed to see him. Luntz had tested voters’ responses to Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, and Ryan, among prominent noncandidates. The results, according to a Republican with knowledge of the discussion, were “very positive” for Ryan.

Luntz is not the only campaign veteran who’s been talking to Ryan. He has been speaking regularly with a number of Republican strategists. Among them are Karl Rove, the longtime adviser to George W. Bush. As Ryan has thought through his decision he’s had as a sounding board the only GOP strategist to win a presidential election in the last two decades.

(...) Ryan spent several hours last week hiking in the Rocky Mountains with Bill Bennett, who has been a friend and mentor for nearly 20 years. They have been doing mountain hikes for several years, but in an interview before the outing Bennett acknowledged that the significance of this year’s trek was the decision on the other side of it. “I expect to have some good long talks.” Bennett declined to share details of those conversations.

Several people who have been talking to Ryan expect that he will return to Washington near the end of August having made his decision. Most everyone who has been in touch with him believes that he is still genuinely torn between the daunting challenge of a presidential campaign he never expected to wage this year and the obligation of stepping forward to serve his country in a time of crisis.