Will Republican Power Brokers Act to King Paul Ryan as GOP Nominee in July?

Although the likelihood that House Speaker Paul Ryan could emerge from the July GOP convention in Cleveland as the party���s nominee for president seems remote, the fact that such a possibility is being discussed at all speaks volumes about the disarray in which the Republican Party presently finds itself.

At this hour, there are conflicting reports as to whether Ryan would accept the nomination if it came his way, but we know that he seemed open to the possibility as of recently. Ryan has not been a declared candidate this time around, although he was the vice-presidential running mate of GOP nominee Mitt Romney in 2012. 

The so-called Republican ���establishment��� has been up in arms over the prospect of Donald Trump as the party standard-bearer ever since it became evident that his candidacy was gaining traction among much of the electorate; many of its high-profile representatives have been vigorous in their public denunciations of Trump, as well as in their efforts to find a way to deny him the nomination.

It is just this sort of behavior that has put Republicans on thin ice in an election year that is supposed to have seen, after eight years of Obama, an easy victory for any party nominee. A surprisingly strong climate of populism, which has elevated Trump to victories in a large number of state contests thus far in 2016 and provided him with the highest delegate count so far, has also served to alienate many Republican traditionalists, with some of the best-heeled and best-connected among them seeking to wrest the nomination from its likeliest claimant. However, it is difficult to imagine a scenario wherein a hotly-contested convention, especially one that is brokered and nominates someone who did not participate in the primary/caucus season, does not act as the catalyst that both assures a Clinton victory in November and causes irreparable damage to the Republican Party.

 By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large