Bold, and so on.
Rep. Paul Ryan, the man of innovative budgets in which none of the numbers add up and Mitt Romney's 2012 running mate, says he might run for president.
But not right now.
"I wouldn't rule out running for president ever," he said in an interview this week with The Associated Press, looking not much older than he did in 2012 as Mitt Romney's running mate. "Just not now."
First he has to overturn Obamacare, redesign the tax system and gut American entitlement programs, you see. These things aren't going to gut themselves.
If he does run in 2020, after the eventual Republican 2016 candidate has been squarely beaten because, well, just look at them, he will at least have the basics of campaigning down. He's a shameless, comical liar, which is qualification number one. And he's still very well liked by Mitt Romney, so he'll have his own pocket rich person all lined up. He'll likely be competing against Jeb Bush (again), Rick Santorum (forever), Dick Cheney's head transplanted onto the body of a lowland gorilla, and Donald Trump, who will make lots of noises about running but then back out again after his new show, Donald Trump Tells You Which Things Are Classy, gets picked up for a third season.
Visions of this dystopian future aside: I realize that there is no job that can prepare a person for being president, and that the requirements for running are thin indeed, but before launching that bid I do wish Paul Ryan was required to propose at least one substantive budget or policy plan that would provably work. He's great at the slideshows, but his current claim to fame is being the guy who proposes things that his own party won't stomach based on budget numbers that don't add up. For that he is considered a policy wonk, because the bar for being a policy wonk these days is even lower than the bar for prospective presidents.