Paul Ryan Won't Endorse Bachmann
Hot Air reports:
It didn’t take long for Rep. Michele Bachmann’s decision to run for Conference Chair in the House Republican caucus to get a reaction from her colleagues. Caucus veterans started lining up behind Bachmann’s opponent for the position, Jeb Hensarling of Texas. Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan, who is well-regarded by the fiscal conservatives active in the Tea Party movement, endorsed Hensarling in a letter to current House Republicans:
House Republicans Thursday reacted strongly against Rep. Michele Bachmann’s decision to run for a top leadership post in the new majority, looking to nip in the bud any chance that she might attract support from the substantially large group of incoming freshman lawmakers.
The trick for Republicans is to keep Bachmann – the Minnesota Republican viewed by many in leadership as an unserious and unhelpful spokesman for the party – away from an elevated platform that many in the party feel would hinder or harm the GOP, without being viewed as not listening to the Tea Party movement, which supplied much of the energy that gave them a 61-seat pickup and control of the House. …
Top House Republicans from Eric Cantor to Paul Ryan are firmly behind Hensarling, arguing that he is a solid conservative who will provide the very “constitutional conservatism” that Bachmann says she represents.
But Hensarling is far less well known beyond Washington and his home district of the southeast Dallas suburbs, so there is potential for average grassroots conservatives who know of Bachmann but not Hensarling to interpret the party’s support for the latter as a slight of the Tea Party.
