Some early supporters have already created merchandise for their candidate of choice.
According to yesterday’s Roll Call piece on Wisconsin’s “Badger Brat Pack,” Wisconsin Republicans expect that Gov. Scott Walker would defer to Congressman Paul Ryan if the latter launched a 2016 presidential campaign. If both ran, the two might be hard to tell apart, the story suggests, given each’s affable style and largely uncompromising dedication to fiscal conservatism. Plus, Wisconsin Republicans might trip some kind of circuit breaker if they rise even higher in national stature. “Two viable Republican primary contenders from Southeastern Wisconsin? Where are all these guys coming from?” could be the reaction.
Roll Call insists that the three men—Walker, Ryan and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus—are friends who’ve discovered each other’s company, ironically, after finding their political fortunes outside of the region they called home. The bond extends to their wives and appears to be strongest between Priebus and Walker, who has said the next president should be a former governor, which would leave out Ryan. Still, sources told the newspaper, Walker would throw his support behind the Wisconsin Representative if the self-described wonk went all in against Marco Rubio, Rand Paul or whoever else gets up the nerve.
Both Ryan and his wife, the story says, “enjoyed” running alongside Mitt Romney, despite the Politico story that said the Wisconsinite had begun calling the New England Republican “the stench” amid some of the campaign’s wobblier days. (note: not a real story)
