Tarred by Trump, Paul Ryan Tries to Safeguard Both Party and Job

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/us/politics/trump-paul-ryan-gop-campaign.html

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MODESTO, Calif. — This should have been a victory lap for Speaker Paul D. Ryan. Summoned by his party to heal its fractious majority in the House, Mr. Ryan grudgingly agreed to lead. Asked by House members to help them win re-election, he raised money by the millions and traveled thousands of miles to campaign at their side.

But with elections not even two weeks away, Mr. Ryan finds that his feuding with Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has threatened not only the largest Republican majority in the House since the 1930s, but also his speakership itself.

For Mr. Ryan, the arc of the past four years — from vice-presidential pick of Mitt Romney to object of Mr. Trump’s scorn — represents perhaps the best measure of the chaos the Trump candidacy has wrought within the party.

In the weeks since Mr. Ryan said that he would no longer defend Mr. Trump or campaign for him, he has heard some mutinous rumblings among his members — a smattering of dissent that may mean little unless Democrats can claim about 20 seats in this election, at the upper end of analysts’ predictions.

If Democrats do gain 20 seats, Mr. Ryan can afford to lose just nine Republican votes if he hopes to retain the speakership in the next Congress.

As he travels the country, Mr. Ryan is choosing venues that are both safe and welcoming, trying to avoid additional comment on the turbulent presidential race.

In a cramped campaign office here in California’s Central Valley, filled with young, exuberant volunteers — and a crush of reporters craning their necks to see whatever they can see from a makeshift pen several yards away — Mr. Ryan is free to act as if this is the policy-driven election he craved.

“Paul Ryan wants desperately to become the leader of what he sees as a new, young Republican Party,” said Heather Cox Richardson, a Boston College history professor and author of “To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party.”

The problem, she said, is that this election season constitutes a shift in which Republicans must come to grips with the factions tearing the party apart, a fight Mr. Ryan may not survive.

“I think it’s a pipe dream,” she added.

As Mr. Ryan bounded through a side door at Representative Jeff Denham’s campaign headquarters here on Thursday, high-pitched cheers pierced the room as dozens of teenage volunteers hoisted their phones for a shot of the speaker.

But Mr. Ryan, who posed for one selfie after another during a 20-minute visit, emphasized that he wanted the election to be about policies, not personalities.

“It becomes a personality contest,” he said. “Don’t forget that underneath this is an ideas contest.”

But he also offered a line that could have been directed at Mr. Trump: “We have show horses and we have workhorses. Be-ers and doers. People who want to be on TV, people who want to be famous, people for whom it’s sort of a vanity thing. And then you have people who really care about ideas.”

For the most part, though, Mr. Ryan has stuck to feel-good language on the campaign trail, where he has made more than 50 appearances in House districts.

He was in New York, raising money for Representative Scott Garrett of New Jersey; in Miami, sipping cafecito at a Cuban restaurant and talking to volunteers with Representative Carlos Curbelo of Florida; and back home at a fall festival, campaigning for Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin — and, conspicuously, not Mr. Trump, who was set to appear until the release of a 2005 recording of him speaking in vulgar terms about women prompted Mr. Ryan to disinvite him.

By mid-October, Mr. Ryan had raised more than $48.2 million this year, transferring more than $31 million of it to the National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s House campaign arm.

Republicans needed the money because they have received little help from Mr. Trump, financial or otherwise, leaving Mr. Ryan and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, to shoulder much of the fund-raising.

Aides say Mr. McConnell has spent much of his time at private fund-raisers and working the phones — maintaining his own distance from questions about Mr. Trump, whom he also endorsed.

Mr. Trump offered only tepid encouragement for voters to support vulnerable down-ballot Republicans this week. “You have to get out and vote, and that includes helping me re-elect Republicans all over the place,” he said during a recent campaign stop in Florida.

“I hope they help me, too. Be nice if they help us, too, right?”

At the same time, Mr. Trump has done as much as anyone to stoke misgivings about Mr. Ryan. Referring to him as “our very weak and ineffective leader” on Twitter after the speaker said he would no longer defend or campaign for him, Mr. Trump has suggested that Mr. Ryan should be punished, an opinion that some Republicans share.

After Mr. Ryan announced his new stance toward Mr. Trump, Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, said that while he respected the speaker, he was not sure if he would support his continuation in that role. “I think this was a wrong move to make,” he said in an Oct. 11 interview with MSNBC.

“It divides the party instead of unifies it. And it almost sacrifices the presidency,” he added.

Publicly, many House Republicans have expressed support for Mr. Ryan, even some of those in the House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservatives who helped press former Speaker John A. Boehner into retirement and have fought with Mr. Ryan over such issues as a short-term funding extension to keep the government running.

Many of them have expressed appreciation for his openness to members’ concerns, and at least two members in tough re-election races — Mr. Garrett and Representative Rod Blum of Iowa — have directly benefited from his fund-raising.

Many of the group’s members have signed a letter petitioning to delay leadership elections, which are scheduled to take place promptly upon Congress’s return the week after Election Day.

The fact that Mr. Ryan only reluctantly agreed to be speaker after intense wooing from fellow Republicans has raised the prospect that he may not put up a fight to keep his position as the highest-ranking elected Republican in the House. But his spokeswoman, AshLee Strong, said he plans to run for speaker again.

“Speaker Ryan has worked hard to unify members behind conservative ideas, but his only focus until Nov. 8 is defeating Democrats and protecting the House Republican majority,” she said in a statement.

The nagging problem is that there appear to be few viable alternatives to Mr. Ryan should even a dozen House Republicans decide to revolt against him, a reality that may keep some dissenters in line. Ryan supporters are hoping that he is playing a smart long game to survive the rise of Mr. Trump.

Mr. Ryan does hold an unmistakable appeal, or at least inspires curiosity, among many young people on the campaign trail — some of them not yet old enough to vote.

As Mr. Ryan’s small motorcade sped off, Desiree Cruz, 15, said, “It seems so unreal to actually be in his presence.”

Just inside the door, Claire Neimann, 17, a soft-spoken volunteer for Mr. Denham’s campaign, said she was struck by what Mr. Ryan could represent for her party.

“I think he’s a new hope, because everyone’s been so divided lately with Trump running,” Ms. Neimann said.