Report: Paul Ryan Thinking About Running For President

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Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Paul_Ryan_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg">Gake Skidmore</a>/Wikimedia Commons

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Is Paul Ryan seriously considering a presidential run? That’s what the Weekly Standard‘s Stehen F. Hayes says:

Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan is strongly considering a run for president. Ryan, who has been quietly meeting with political strategists to discuss a bid over the past three months, is on vacation in Colorado discussing a prospective run with his family. Ryan’s concerns about the effects of a presidential campaign—and perhaps a presidency—on his family have been his primary focus as he thinks through his political future.

“He’s coming around,” says a Republican source close to Ryan, who has been urging the 41-year-old to run.

“With Paul, it’a more about obligation than opportunity,” says another Wisconsin Republican. “He is determined to have the 2012 election be about the big things. If that means he has to run, he’s open to it.”

So is there anything to this? Well, back in June I noted that Ryan delivered a major foreign policy speech focusing on the theme of “American Exceptionalism,” which seemed like an odd move for a Congressman who focuses exclusively on domestic economic policy—unless, that is, he wanted to be something bigger. With Sen. Herb Kohl retiring at the end of this Congress, there’s a job opening in the upper chamber, but Ryan has said that that would be a step down from his perch atop the House budget committee. So that leaves us with president, and given that Ryan’s budget plan has become a sacred text among the current crop of candidates, who better to lead the party forward?

Of course, the other scenario here is that the Weekly Standard just really, really wants Ryan to run, and is inflating every rumor into something bigger. Last week, editor Bill Kristol published an ode (an actual ode) to Ryan, Chris Christie and others asking them to run. It was Kristol who first floated Sarah Palin as a national figure in 2008. And it’s the Standard that’s been the source of the loudest Ryan speculation to date. So there’s precedent for wishful thinking on their part.