Paul Ryan won't categorically rule out accepting GOP nom
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/15/paul-ryan-wont-categorically-rule-out-accepting-gop-nom.htmlJohn Harwood | @johnjharwood
6 Hours AgoCNBC.com
House Speaker Paul Ryan decided not to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, but he declined to rule out accepting it if a deadlocked party convention turns to him this summer.
"You know, I haven't given any thought to this stuff," Ryan said Tuesday night in an exclusive interview at the Capitol. "People say, 'What about the contested convention?' I say, well, there are a lot of people running for president. We'll see. Who knows."
Ryan, who ran in 2012 as Mitt Romney's vice presidential nominee, has taken no public actions to encourage the idea that he could become a candidate. To the contrary, a political committee set up to draft him into the 2016 race recently shut down at the urging of the speaker's aides.
"I actually think you should run for president if you're going to be president, if you want to be president," Ryan said in the interview. "I'm not running for president. I made that decision, consciously, not to."
Yet Donald Trump, even as he has established himself as the clear front-runner in the Republican race, still faces a challenge in rounding up the 1,237 delegates he needs to be nominated on the first ballot at the Republican convention in Cleveland. Trump's challenge was steepened by Gov. John Kasich's victory in Tuesday's winner-take-all Ohio primary — which keeps Kasich in a three-way nomination fight with Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump acknowledges supporters at a town hall campaign event in Hickory, North Carolina. March 14, 2016.
Big night for Trump and Clinton; Kasich takes Ohio
Ryan will chair the Republican convention, and would become a leading prospect if delegates decided to turn to someone outside the current field.
"I don't see that happening," he said in the interview. "I'm not thinking about it. I'm happy where I am, so no."
But at a moment of increasing urgency for the efforts by Romney and other prominent Republicans to block Trump, Ryan declined to categorically rule it out.
