Ron Paul Or Paul Ryan For President?

Patterico's Pontifications - So Ron Paul is set to announce something today, and The National Journal makes the following prediction about it:

Sources close to Paul, who is in his 12th term in the House, said he will unveil an exploratory presidential committee, a key step in gearing up for a White House race. He will also unveil the campaign’s leadership team in Iowa, where the first votes of the presidential election will be cast in caucuses next year.

Well, certainly with government overreach in the last few years, libertarianism is likely to be a more appealing position this year than in years before. Still, it is Quixotic of him to keep trying, if only because of his tendency to blame America for September 11, which doesn’t fly in the Republican party.

Bluntly he is fine, even useful, as a Congressman, where he can be a reliable vote against big government and his more kooky beliefs are checked by their overwhelming lack of popularity. I find him tolerable in that role. But lord, he might be the only Republican who would be so bad that I would pull the lever for Obama. And you guys know that is saying something.

And that is on the issues. You will remember what I said about representatives running for President so I will only give you the Cliff’s Notes version: I like my candidates to have prior executive experience. Well, that applies to Ron Paul, too.

Of course the last time I talked about this sort of thing (in relation to Michele Bachmann) I wrote:

And you know, if we have to pick a Representative with little executive experience, couldn’t it be Paul Ryan?

And wouldn’t you know it, they just might give me that option. From a rumory post over at Ace of Spades HQ:

But I asked another journalist type (I won’t say who since I didn’t tell him I’d be quoting, it was a personal type question) and he said, “Well, he rules it out in his public statements but in his private statements…?” Not so much.

I asked, to be sure, if he was saying “Who knows what he says in private?” or if he was saying “I’ve heard what he says in private, and he’s not as firm on it as he is in public declarations.” He confirmed it was the latter.

I think the situation he’d be willing to consider it is if there’s no unifying, consensus figure in the primaries.

Which isn’t a very solid rumor, but it gave me an excuse to write that silly title. I still think that his resumé needs more executive experience, but I feel better with the idea of him being president than Paul and/or Bachmann. Which isn’t exactly high praise, but there you go. Personally, if we were going to pick a budget fixing guy, Governor Chris Christie would be my choice. I would love to see him raking Obama over the coals with the budget B.S. that has come out of Washington in the last few years and he is a lot closer to the minimal executive experience I prefer.

And of course you all know that Haley Barbour bowed out yesterday. His official statement is here. Which is too bad, because his credentials were better than most in the field (saying that with little knowledge of Barbour’s actual positions).