It looks like we'lll have to wait a while longer -- By Judy Chaffee, Courage In America

It is hard to express the disappointment that Paul Ryan has decided against a Presidential bid.  We believe that he was the right man for the job -- the best man for the job, and at a time when the country needs his sensible leadership, especially with respect to a budget, spending and fiscally responsible policys and decisions-making.

But we do at least console ourselves with the fact that we will still benefit from his leadership as he remains at the debt and entitlement reform helm -- as chairman of the House Budget Committee.

Perhaps in the next election, he will feel that the time is right.  And whenever he does hear that calling, we will be standing tall in support of his candidacy.

Paul Ryan is Not Running for President -- By Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard

Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan has decided for a final time that he will not run for president in 2012, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned. Ryan, who began seriously considering a bid in late May after Indiana governor Mitch Daniels took himself out of the race, had consulted with top Republicans, including Karl Rove and Frank Luntz, as he contemplated his political future. And though many of those he talked with told him he would be a viable candidate in such a fluid race, even as a late entry, Ryan ultimately decided to continue his focus on debt and entitlement reform as chairman of the House Budget Committee.

"I sincerely appreciate the support from those eager to chart a brighter future for the next generation. While humbled by the encouragement, I have not changed my mind, and therefore I am not seeking our party's nomination for President. I remain hopeful that our party will nominate a candidate committed to a pro-growth agenda of reform that restores the promise and prosperity of our exceptional nation. I remain grateful to those I serve in Southern Wisconsin for the unique opportunity to advance this effort in Congress."

Ryan has said publicly he is concerned that those currently running for the GOP nomination are not addressing long-term fiscal and economic issues in a way that makes clear the magnitude of the challenges. He told Milwaukee talk radio host Charlie Sykes on August 12 that he was disappointed in the presidential debate in Iowa and thought the field needed a candidate who could articulate the need for limited government.

“The way I see 2012 – we owe it to the country to let them choose the path they want our country to take,” he said. “And I just have yet to see a strong and principled articulation of the kind of limited government, opportunity society path that we would provide as an alternative to the Obama cradle-to-grave welfare state.”

Ryan spoke with New Jersey governor Chris Christie earlier this month and, according to four sources familiar with the call, the two men agreed on the need for Republicans to field a candidate who isn’t afraid to engage the public—and Democrats—on entitlement reform. Christie, who had given a speech chastising timid Republicans on that subject in February, told Ryan that he did not intend to run. Christie’s representatives have said the same thing in public.

Ryan’s comments on the Republican field came one day before Texas governor Rick Perry announced his candidacy, though he was widely expected to join the race. Perry’s campaign reached out to Ryan last week and, while there is no indication Perry’s entry in the race had any bearing on Ryan’s decision, the two men plan to meet in a few weeks when they are both near Washington, D.C. Perry has called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” and called for reform. That’s stronger language than Ryan typically uses but Perry is plainly willing to raise these previously untouchable issues.

Several sources close to Ryan tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD they were surprised at how close he came to running. Over the past several weeks, Ryan had talked extensively about running with select Republican party leaders, GOP strategists, and a tight circle of Wisconsin friends and advisers. In private meetings with fundraisers and conservative movement leaders he expressed skepticism that he could win, and raised concerns about the toll a race would take on his family. But he nonetheless made clear that he was open to running.

For Ryan, being president has never been a lifelong ambition. His consideration of a presidential bid came not because of any desire to be president and, in many respects, came in spite of his inclinations against one. Ryan has hoped that he might play the role of Jack Kemp to the next Ronald Reagan.

In the end, Paul Ryan is a conviction politician. Although he’s known for being cerebral, he makes most of his decisions by listening to his gut. The same instincts that told him to push forward with entitlement reform in the House Republican budget last spring are telling him to take a pass on the presidential race.

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What are Paul Ryan's vulnerabilities? -- Are they any worse than Perry's or Romney's? -- by John McCormack, The Weekly Standard

A potential Paul Ryan presidential run has sparked a lot of enthusiasm among conservatives who are depressed with a weak Republican field. But it has also prompted some conservatives to voice concerns about Ryan's path to the GOP nomination and victory in the general election--and what failure in either contest would mean for Ryan and his cause.

I'll try to respond to the Ryan skeptics' arguments one at a time.

1. Ed Morrissey writes that Ryan's lack of executive experience will hurt him: "The fumbles of Obama will allow Republicans to argue that his failed presidency results in part from his inability to handle executive power, but we can’t make that argument at the same time that we’re offering a candidate who has never held executive office in any context at all."

The case against Obama isn't that he's an inexperienced liberal--it's that he's a conventional and committed liberal. How would a liberal with executive experience have governed differently than Obama? The 44th president has actually been quite effective at implementing his preferred policies. But liberalism--Obamacare, stimulus spending, "leading from behind"--just doesn't work.

So one of the most important jobs of a president is to enact good policies. That requires intelligence, sound judgment and principles, the ability to persuade, courage, and character. Real leadership, as opposed to executive experience, is what matters. And with his budget, Ryan has led on economic growth, spending, and health care--the central issues in American politics in 2012--as much or more than any other politician in America.

One needn't sign bills into law as a governor to be a leader. After all, one-term former congressman and failed Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln did not have any executive experience when he was nominated in 1860. But he did lead on the most pressing issue of the day by proving in the Lincoln-Douglas debates to be the most persuasive opponent of the expansion of slavery.

I'm not putting Ryan on the same pedestal as our nation's finest president, but Lincoln clearly shows that one doesn't need to be a CEO or a governor to be a good president. Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush were all governors. And yet all four were very different presidents. The reason Carter was the worst isn't because he didn't have as much experience as the others. It's because he was the most liberal.

2. Allahpundit doubts that Ryan has a path to the nomination:

What makes Ryan significantly different from, oh, say, Tim Pawlenty? They’re both young, smart, soft-spoken midwestern conservatives. Pawlenty had the added advantages of eight years of executive experience and, unlike Ryan, no TARP vote to his record for his opponents to use against him. And he ended up flatlining in Iowa five months before the caucuses. Ryan’s advantage, of course, is that he’s hugely respected on the right among both the grassroots and the establishment for his boldness in pushing entitlement reform. [...]
Beyond that, where’s he getting the money to compete with Bachmann in Iowa, Romney in New Hampshire, and Perry in South Carolina? [...]
Who’s more electable: Sixtysomething former governor Mitt Romney and his message of jobs and economic growth or fortysomething-going-on-25 congressman Paul Ryan and his message of overhauling grandma’s benefits (which of course isn’t actually his message)?

The difference between Ryan and Pawlenty isn't just that Ryan has boldly pushed for entitlement reform. Ryan is a charismatic and authentic conservative, while presidential candidate Pawlenty was not. Ryan might not knock every speech out of the park, but sometimes he does.

He's even better when he's talking to constituents at town hall meetings. This spring he held 18 of them in his district and took questions on just about every issue under the sun. While Ryan is known in Washington for being super-wonky, he connected with average voters by answering every question clearly and concisely. There's a reason why Ryan ran 17 points ahead of John McCain in a midwestern swing district in 2008.

Ryan thrives the most in debate, so the primaries would give him the opportunity to show Republican voters why they'd rather have Ryan go toe-to-toe with Obama than Mitt Romney or Rick Perry.
The debates would also give Ryan a chance to surpass Romney. The beginning of the end of Tim Pawlenty's campaign came when he failed to defend his "Obamneycare" attack. Would Ryan shrink from criticizing Romneycare? Or would he dismantle Romneycare like he ripped apart Obamacare at the White House?

For Ryan to win the nomination, he'd have to win New Hampshire. That means he probably has to finish ahead of Mitt Romney in Iowa and become the alternative to the winner in Iowa (Rick Perry or, for Ryan, hopefully Michele Bachmann). Money really isn't a big issue. Ryan would have more than enough to get his message out in Iowa and New Hampshire.

And is a technocratic Mormon from Massachusetts really more electable than a seven-term congressman from a swing district in a battleground state?

3. The best argument against a Ryan run is that a loss would cripple his cause. More from Allahpundit:

There are two great risks to a Ryan candidacy. One: He’ll succeed in turning the focus of the primaries from economic growth to entitlement reform. We can argue about whether that’s a good thing — although Americans care much more about the former than the latter, it may be that this conversation simply can’t wait another moment — but if the party ends up with Ryan’s agenda, it had sure better have Ryan as its nominee too. The worst outcome would be if he shifts the discussion but then ends up losing the nomination, leaving the nominee stuck having to champion Ryan’s goals albeit less effectively than Ryan himself would/could do. And two: A run risks destroying Ryan’s brand. If he jumps in and gets Pawlenty’d in Iowa and New Hampshire, he goes back to D.C. knowing that his reform agenda was rejected even by ardent Republican voters. That would cripple him on the Hill; even if the GOP cleaned up on election day, a new Republican Congress would suddenly be reluctant to pass his budget. He’s taking a big risk on a very long longshot and it could end up setting back not just his political career but his cause.

But the Democrats are already going to run hundreds of millions of dollars in attack ads on Republican support for entitlement reform. Romney has said he'd sign Ryan's plan if it came across his desk. Rick Perry is already pretty far out there on entitlement reform, (accurately) calling Social Security and Medicare "Ponzi scheme[s]" and suggesting we should consider replacing these federal programs with state programs.

If Ryan is the best person to defend the Ryan plan, then why shouldn't he run? True, Ryan is known most for his Medicare reform, so the media would dwell on overhauling Medicare more if he were the Republican nominee. But would the additional media scrutiny really swing the election one way or the other?

I know it sounds crazy, but I don't think the "Paul Ryan wants to kill grandma" attacks would be all that effective. As the campaign progresses, the fact that Ryan wouldn't touch Medicare for anyone 55 or over would become more well known, and he'd get to counterpunch by campaigning against Obamacare--an actual law about to go into full effect if Obama isn't defeated--and its looming death panels. If Ryan is the most articulate and forceful critic of Obamacare, then why shouldn't he run?

If Ryan fails to win the nomination, I don't see how that destroys his cause. Republican primary voters could choose to vote for Perry, Romney, or Bachmann over Ryan for any number of reasons. If Ryan loses the nomination, it's not like the looming debt crisis will magically disappear. The next president--of either party--will have to enact some sort of entitlement reform or face national fiscal ruin and be remembered as the 21st century's Herbert Hoover.

4. Jim Antle writes that Ryan is vulnerable because he's strayed from the conservative line by voting for TARP and the Medicare prescription drug benefit. He also voted for the auto bailout.
These issues are probably his biggest vulnerabilities in a Republican primary, but Ryan defends his votes not in the self-righteous tone of a John McCain but as a conservative who chose the least bad option. You can listen to his defense of the Medicare vote here, and here's what he told the Daily Caller about TARP and the auto bailout:

TARP. I’ll take one at a time. I believe we were on the cusp of a deflationary spiral which would have created a Depression. I think that’s probably pretty likely. If we would have allowed that to happen, I think we would have had a big government agenda sweeping through this country so fast that we wouldn’t have recovered from it. So in order to prevent a Depression and a complete evisceration of the free market system we have, I think it was necessary. It wasn’t a fun vote. You don’t get to choose the kind of votes you want. But I just think as far as the long term objectives that I have — which are restoring the principles of this country — I think it was necessary to prevent those principles from being really kind of wiped out for a generation.

Auto. Really clear. The president’s chief of staff made it extremely clear to me before the vote, which is either the auto companies get the money that was put in the Energy Department for them already — a bill that I voted against because I didn’t want to give them that money, which was only within the $25 billion, money that was already expended but not obligated — or the president was going to give them TARP, with no limit. That’s what they told me. That’s what the president’s chief of staff explained to me. I said, ‘Well, I don’t want them to get TARP. We want to keep TARP on a [inaudible]. We don’t want to expand it. So give them that Energy Department money that at least puts them out of TARP, and is limited.’ Well, where are we now? What I feared would happen did happen. The bill failed, and now they’ve got $87 billion from TARP, money we’re not going to get back. And now TARP, as a precedent established by the Bush administration, whereby the Obama administration now has turned this thing into its latest slush fund. And so I voted for that to prevent precisely what has happened, which I feared would happen. 

Maybe conservatives won't find these explanations good enough, but will TARP and the auto bailout really be decisive issues for primary voters? Reaction to the bailouts may have inspired the Tea Party, but TARP isn't what truly animates the Tea Party today. Runaway spending and Obamacare are the issues that turned the Tea Party from a small band of rabble-rousers into a full-fledged anti-Obama movement. Sarah Palin and Herman Cain initially supported TARP and they're Tea Partiers in good standing.

Of course, the real question is not whether Ryan has vulnerabilities, but whether they're worse than Romney's or Perry's.

On one hand, Perry can boast of Texas's fantastic jobs numbers. On the other hand, he'll have to respond to allegations of crony capitalism. He's a Washington outsider with personal charm, but Republicans concerned about electability may fear his rough talk and swagger (George W. Bush without the compassion) will alienate suburban swing voters. While Perry's public prayer should help him with evangelicals, social conservatives will be spooked by his HPV vaccine mandate and his 2008 endorsement of presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani--also known as "pro-abortion, pro-same sex marriage Rudy Guiliani" to Mike Huckabee, winner of the 2008 GOP Iowa caucuses. Some conservatives will also take issue with Perry's opposition to the Arizona immigration law and his mixed record on immigration in general.

As the 2008 GOP primary runner-up, Romney starts out as the clear front-runner in New Hampshire, and he polls the best against Obama. But those poll numbers may largely be a function of name recognition. Romney can tout his business experience (we all know he doesn't want to talk about Romneycare, his flip-flops, and his tenure as governor), but isn't being the executive of Bain Capital also a liability for him? Romney lacks charisma. And Democrats are sure to make an issue of his Mormon faith. (I'm not saying that's fair, but it's just a fact that the bias against Mormons is stronger than the bias against other religious and ethnic minorities.)

So are Paul Ryan's liabilities really worse than Perry's or Romney's? I think not. And without a leader like Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie, or Jeb Bush in the race to champion his cause, why shouldn't Ryan run for the presidency?

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Governors Heap Praise on Paul Ryan's Possible Presidential Bid -- By Alicia M. Cohn, The Hill

Gov. Scott Walker would "love" to see fellow Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan run for president, Walker said Wednesday night.

"I would love to see him run," Walker told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren. "I hope he's at least serious about reconsidering it, because I think there's a lot of people across America who would love to see him on the ticket."

Rumors circulated earlier in the week that Ryan might not have ruled out a presidential bid in 2012. Republican strategist Karl Rove named Ryan as another possible candidate and the conservative Weekly Standard magazine reported sources close to Ryan claimed the House Budget Committee chairman was "seriously considering" a run.

Ryan's spokesman denied the report on Tuesday, but Ryan quickly accrued a great deal of public support following the report. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who explored the possibility of a presidential run himself earlier this year, had only good things to say about Ryan's possible presidential bid Thursday on CSPAN, and said he very well might support him if he joined the race.

Both Walker and Daniels praised Ryan as s "courageous" leader.

"His is a very important voice, whether he gets in or doesn't," Daniels said.

Walker also employed a phrase President Obama has been using this week on the road during his three-day economic bus tour. "We need people who worry more about the next generation than they do about the next election," Walker said. "That's exactly what you'd get out of Paul Ryan."

Walker added, "I think right now it is still highly unlikely" that Ryan would run for president.

"I think there are other good candidates out there," Walker said. "Obviously, I would have a personal preference to Paul Ryan, just because I think so much of him."

Walker had good things to say about Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) as well as former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, but said "in the end" he has a "bias" towards supporting a former governor for president.

"If the issue is jobs, you've got two governors who have good track records," said Walker, who is a polarizing political figure due to taking a strong stance in his state on labor issues. "I've worked most closely with Rick Perry, and seen the success he's had in Texas."

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Scott Walker Pushes Paul Ryan to Run -- By Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker added his voice to a growing chorus of conservative leaders calling on Congressman Paul Ryan to join the Republican presidential race. Walker, one of the country's most popular figures with rank-and-file Republicans, says that Ryan's leadership on the difficult issues is what the country needs now.

“Paul Ryan is one of the most courageous people I know,” Walker said. “Now, more than ever, we need a president with courage. We need leaders who care more about the next generation than they do about the next election. That's Paul.”

Walker, who has a strong following among Tea Party conservatives after his tough battles on Wisconsin's budget, strengthens the case for a Ryan candidacy by offering strong encouragement from someone with no ties to the Bush administration.

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GOP Leaders Push Paul Ryan to Run for President -- Mitch Daniels, Jeb Bush, John Boehner, Jim Jordan and Bill Bennett encourage Ryan to enter the Presidential race -- By Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard

As Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan comes to a final decision about running for president, several top national conservatives are encouraging him to join the race. Ryan, who has been seriously but quietly considering a presidential bid for several months, is expected to decide on a run in the next two weeks.

Indiana governor Mitch Daniels hopes he runs. “If there were a Paul Ryan fan club, I'd be a national officer,” Daniels said in a phone interview Wednesday morning.

“I don't think it's a secret that he was strongly encouraging me to try. I've been strongly encouraging him to run as well. He has all the qualities our party needs to be emphasizing in these elections. He can explain—and is willing to explain—in plain English why today's policies are a disaster for the middle class, and he has the smarts to go toe-to-toe with the people who are saying misleading things about the proposals that he’s put out there.”

That’s a view that is likely to matter. Ryan has said that his decision to reconsider a presidential bid came only after Daniels called him to say that he had decided against a run. The two men share a belief that reducing our national debt—and reforming the entitlements that are growing it—must be at the center of the presidential debate in 2012. Ryan told a Milwaukee radio station on Friday that he is unsatisfied with the current Republican field and disappointed the current crop of candidates has not gotten specific with their proposals.

Daniels says he has spoken to Ryan about a bid and encouraged him to run, but that they haven’t talked in the past couple of weeks. He disagrees with those who believe that the political calendar makes another entry too difficult. “It’s not too late. If it’s not too late for Rick Perry, it’s not too late for Paul. I’m a more-the-merrier kind of guy about the primary field. Absolutely there’s time.”

Daniels also dismisses concerns about Ryan’s age. “It didn’t stop the last guy,” he says, laughing. “This president would have a hard time arguing that Paul wouldn’t be a serious candidate.” When asked if that might be an object lesson, Daniels says no. “It’s a natural question but I think people would be reassured both by hearing him talk and by the people he’d put around him.”

Another prominent conservative reformer, Jeb Bush, also thinks Ryan should run.
“Paul Ryan would be a formidable candidate. I admire his substance and energy. Win or lose, he would force the race to be about sustained, job-creating economic growth and the real policies that can achieve it.”

Ryan has been receiving encouragement from his colleagues in the House for months. California congressman Devin Nunes, who has worked extensively with Ryan on entitlement reform and spending issues, has been pushing Ryan for months. So has John Boehner, according to two sources familiar with their conversations. Boehner has praised Ryan as a “natural candidate” to fellow House Republicans.

Ohio congressman Jim Jordan, a leading conservative in the House and head of the Republican Study Committee, is also bullish on a possible Ryan bid. “He'd certainly be an asset to the race. When Paul talks about Cut, Cap, and Balance as a key to solving America's debt problem, people get it.”

Ryan is in Colorado vacationing with his family this week. Three sources close to Ryan tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD that his wife, Jana, is “on board” with a presidential bid. “That is a very big deal,” says one Ryan confidant. “Not that she’s enthusiastic, but she understands and she’s with him on it.”

Ryan is also spending this time talking to friends and advisers as he tries to finalize his decision. Bill Bennett, who counts as both, will be taking a hike with Ryan later this week and will be talking to him about a run. “I’ll be with him in the next couple days and I expect to have some good long talks,” Bennett says from Colorado.

When Ryan first considered running for Congress, he went to Bennett for advice, asking his mentor if a run would “pass the laugh test.” Bennett told him it would and encouraged him to try. Ryan listened.

During their chats later this week, Ryan will almost certainly pose the same question and Bennett will give him the same answer.

Will he listen?

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Ryan for President? -- Paul Ryan is in the final stages of deciding on a presidential run -- By Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard

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’s 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.”

Ryan hinted at his thinking during a candid interview Friday with Charlie Sykes, an influential talk radio host in Milwaukee, telling Sykes that he was unsatisfied with the current crop of Republican candidates.

Sykes asked Ryan about state of the Republican presidential campaign. “Looking at the Republican field right now, are you confident that the candidates there are able to articulate the issues of the debt and the deficit and the need to reform entitlements in the way that you want to see done?”

Ryan laughed. “Why did you ask me that?”

“You know exactly why I asked you that question.”

“I know. We’ll see. I didn’t see it last night. I haven’t seen it to date. We’ll see. People’s campaigns evolve – they get better. So we’ll see.”

Ryan then broadened his comments. “Look, the way I see 2012 – we owe it to the country to let them choose the path they want our country to take. And I just have yet to see a strong and principled articulation of the kind of limited government, opportunity society path that we would provide as an alternative to the Obama cradle to grave welfare state.”

Sykes pressed him. “Do you think that it is absolutely essential that there be a Republican candidate who is able to articulate…”

Ryan cut him off. “I do. Because this is how we get our country back. We do it through a referendum letting the country pick the path not by having a committee of 12 people pick the path or not by having just the inertia of just letting the status quo just stumble through by winning a campaign based on dividing people.”

Sykes asked if Ryan understands why people think that person should be him.

“Well, I keep hearing that. I’m hoping that people will step up and I’m hoping that somebody – I can help them fashion this. You know my story and you know my answer – and I haven’t changed it. We’ve got a long way to go. There’s 15 months left.”

Ryan has been talking to friends and advisers about a run since last spring. Those familiar with his thinking say that he expected that Indiana governor Mitch Daniels would run. Hours before Daniels released a letter he’d sent to supporters informing them of his decision not to run, he called Ryan to give him a heads up. That phone call profoundly changed Ryan’s thinking.

One Ryan confidante used an analogy to make the point. Ryan sees running for president like taking a swan dive off a cliff. In the early stages of the race, when he started getting calls urging him to run, Ryan began walking away from the cliff at a brisk pace. Then, when Daniels announced that he was passing on a bid, Ryan stopped in place and turned around. In the weeks since, he’s slowly made his way back to the cliff and he’s now peering over the side trying to decide if he makes the leap.

There have been many hints of this in recent months. In an early June appearance on Your World with Neil Cavuto, the Fox host asked Ryan if he had changed his mind about a run. Ryan, who had been rather firm in his denials of interest, softened his hard line. “Look, I want to see how this field develops,” he said, surprising even those who had been urging him to run. “I was hoping Mitch Daniels would get into the race. He obviously didn’t do that. But there’s such a long way to go. Obviously, I believe Republicans need to retake the White House.”

When Cavuto asked if this meant he was taking another look, as Ryan’s comments suggested, the congressman said he wasn’t giving it “serious consideration because to do that you really have to get into this thing full throttle.”

But in private meetings with conservatives urging him to run, Ryan was more open to a bid and that serious consideration started shortly thereafter. Early this summer, Ryan met with two different Republican strategists to game out what a late-starting run would require, making clear that he was truly just asking questions and not yet planning. He continued to take calls from top Republican fundraisers, neither committing to a bid nor ruling one out. And he asked his staff to look at whether he would have to give up his seat in the House if he were to jump into the Republican primary.

Last week, Ryan’s Prosperity PAC sent out a fundraising letter seeking money to run ads in Iowa to counter attack ads run against Republicans by the Democratic National Committee. “The DNC is attacking all of the candidates for their support of my Path to Prosperity budget,” Ryan wrote. “We have to fight back. With your support, I’m planning on launching a counter-attack to educate Iowa voters about the Path to Prosperity and how it’s the only plan currently on the table that saves Medicare.”

Iowa Republican Party chairman Matt Strawn says that Ryan has an open invitation to come to visit Iowa and talk to Republicans – “whether as a presidential candidate or national conservative thought leader.”

Perhaps more telling was Ryan’s request not to serve on the debt supercommittee created by the recent deal on the debt ceiling. Ryan has become driver of policy in the Republican Party, with a focus on debt and deficits. And virtually everyone assumed he would have a seat on the committee. But Ryan went to House speaker John Boehner and specifically requested to be left off of the panel. In his public statements, Ryan said he needed time to work on budget reform in the House. While there’s little doubt that Ryan is keen to work on reforming a badly broken budget process, a source close to the Wisconsin congressman says he asked to remain off the supercommittee in order to preserve the option of a presidential run. The same source says that Boehner encouraged Ryan to run.

In his interview Friday with Charlie Sykes, Ryan argued that the supercommittee is not the place to debate debt and deficits – the 2012 campaign is. “The reason I don’t think it’s going to get us another grand bargain – or should – is we should not have a system where 12 politicians cut some agreement in a back room that restructures the whole design of the federal government in three months time. This is a decision that should be brought to the American people.” He added: “I think we need to have a discussion and a debate about how we’re going to deal with this debt crisis because that will determine the kind of country we are going to be and the kind of country we are going to be for a long, long time.”

That’s the kind of debate that would take place during a presidential race, of course. Ryan does not see anyone in the current Republican field who is making such a debate the center of his or her presidential campaign. Perhaps not surprisingly, Ryan disagrees with the conventional wisdom that the entitlement reform proposals in his budget plan are poison to Republican candidates across the country. He points to the results of the recalls in Wisconsin last week, where the battles centered on Ryan’s plans for retooling Medicare as much as Scott Walker’s successful and increasingly less controversial budget reforms, as “vindication” for the solutions that House Republicans have put before the American people.

Ryan spokesman Conor Sweeney says his boss has nothing to declare. “While grateful for the continued support and encouragement, Chairman Ryan has not changed his mind.”

That seems to be true. No one close to Ryan will say that he has made a decision to run. He is using this family vacation—almost two weeks away from Washington—to give serious thought to diving off of that cliff.