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Paul Ryan Strolls to an Easy Primary Win

Paul Ryan Strolls to an Easy Primary Win

It wasn’t even close

Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, walloped his primary opponent, Paul Nehlen yesterday.

A poll released last week showed Ryan with a sixty-six point lead over Nehlen.

Fox News reported:

Ryan’s victory is a blow to the GOP’s populist wing, some of whom had criticized him as insufficiently conservative. Nehlen spent much of his campaign trying to tie himself to Donald Trump, but the Republican presidential nominee ended up grudgingly endorsing Ryan last week.

At a news conference, Ryan thanked the voters of Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District while acknowledging “a lot of real frustration in this country” and “a lot of anger that Washington just isn’t working.”

“In times as uncertain as these, it is easy to resort to division,” Ryan said. “That stuff sells, but it doesn’t stick. It doesn’t last. Most of all, it doesn’t work.”
Nehlen won the backing of some prominent conservative figures, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, but it wasn’t enough to overcome Ryan’s popularity in the southeastern Wisconsin district he has represented since 1998.

This is Ryan’s first re-election win since becoming speaker last fall.

It wasn’t even close:

Trump had originally refused to endorse Ryan and had tweeted his support to Nehlen, but later endorsed Ryan after significant pressure from Republican leadership.

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Comments

But with the support of Palin and Coulter, how could Nehlen lose to the “traitor” Ryan?

Oh well, just double your efforts against Cruz in 2018. That should work out better.

So much fail.

It was the T-rump endorsement.

…hadabe…

It seems that McCain is the last hope for doing any damage to the RINO hold on the Republican Party.
The establishment is demonstrating its strength.

    Zachary in reply to Rick. | August 10, 2016 at 10:43 am

    Aided and abetted by no other than the outsider himself.

      Rick in reply to Zachary. | August 10, 2016 at 11:03 am

      From what I have read, you are probably correct.
      However, it is a tactic of the establishment to portray anyone outside their click to be unhinged, and that tactic has been successful in this election cycle. Maybe only someone unhinged is willing to take on the establishment. While I as somewhat embarrassed to write this: It may be better to get some wild and crazies into congress if that is the price to pay for reducing the power of the entrenched establishment, which is taking America down a path to destruction.
      The unhinged tactic is being used against Trump as well, and it may be successful.

Ryan was expected to win, rather easily. Though some may have hoped for Nehlen to win, this was extremely unlikely. Nehlen was an extreme dark-horse candidate in this race. Not only does he have baggage which limits his attractiveness as a candidate, but he was running against the incumbent in the most liberal district in a very liberal state. And, Wisconsin is a very liberal state. In the last 30 years, it has gone to the Democrat, in the Presidential election, by a margin of 15-25%, except for ’80 and ’84, the Reagan elections and Trump lost the primary there to Cruz, by 13% [with Kasich taking 14% of the vote] and Sanders beat Clinton by the same margin. And, the Milwaukee – Madison area is very probably the most liberal area in the state. Also, he did not have the support of the Republican party, which was solidly in the tank for Ryan.

    Ragspierre in reply to Mac45. | August 10, 2016 at 12:00 pm

    What a load of bed-wetting, apologetic bullshit.

    Who is the governor of the state?

    In which party’s control is the legislature?

    Cruz took the state handily in its primary.

    So Wish-con-sin is NOT “a very liberal state”.

    And Mr. Establishment endorsed Ryan. Just like I predicted he would.

    And Sell-out Sarah Palin and Ann (Boy! Can SHE pick’em) Coulter were all in for the T-rump sucking boi. Along with Dim Jim Hoft and the rest of the T-rumpMedia complex.

    I think that pretty well seals the deal on Sell-Out Sarah. Pathetic.

      Mac45 in reply to Ragspierre. | August 10, 2016 at 1:16 pm

      Party designations mean little in Wisconsin. The current governor and Republican legislature were elected on the platform that they would attack the union government workers who still had jobs while the private sector was struggling. This was nothing more than liberal class struggle. Then Walker and the Republican Legislature set out to punish the unions representing public employees when they supported the Democrat candidates. Nothing new here.

      Also, one has to understand that the Republican Party of Wisconsin is still heavily a part of the Uniparty, run by what has come to be called the Establishment. Cruz won the primary, because it was either he or Trump [the only other candidate left was Kasich, and he got 14% of the vote] and Cruz was supported by the Republican Party. Though Cruz attempted to position himself as an anti-establishment candidate, he was no more a conservative, anti-establishment politician than GW Bush was. He was the ANTI-TRUMP candidate.

      Also, Wisconsin has an open primary, which means that anyone can, and does, vote in any party’s primary race, regardless of party affiliation. Wisconsin has always been a liberal state. And, based solely upon Ryan’s voting record and support for legislation in the House, he is anything but conservative.

      However, Nehlen had a LOT of negatives, which would not help him with the electorate. He also was actively campaigned against by the Wisconsin Republican Party. So, the political bent of the voters was of Wisconsin was not the sole factor in his loss. As I said, given all the factors involved, had he prevailed, he would have been an extreme dark-horse candidate.

Nehlen’s poor showing is the direct result of a poor candidate running a bad campaign. His attack ads were often over the top. He was terrible in extended interviews. He seldom offered anything more than criticism of Ryan and that got very stale really fast. He had media support and more than a little out of state money flow and rented activists the last couple of months, but still couldn’t get any traction with voters. Conservative radio talkers even gave him some air time near the end and he just sounded like an idiot.

I wondered what kind of pretzels the T-rump suckers would twist themselves into to explain away this LANDSLIDE victory for Ryan.

Now we know. See Mac45.

Pitiful.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I doubt that I’d vote for Ryan here in Texas. But we DO tend to conservatives…

And we don’t tend to be T-rump suckers.

Subotai Bahadur | August 10, 2016 at 3:26 pm

Given that Ryan is functionally a Democrat Speaker of the House, and since Wisconsin is such a liberal state, the obvious response is for those who opposed Ryan is to support and vote for the Democrat in the general election. Better an open enemy in his first term in front of you, than an enemy agent pretending to be your leader behind you.

I think some of you brain surgeons need to read a bit of Wisconsin political history.

Nehlen never had a chance running against the donor class’s boy.