I Apologize To Tim Ryan

Back in February, I called former Ohio congressman Tim Ryan a fraud for joining a natural-gas lobbying group and promoting natural gas as a "bridge" to clean, renewable energy.  Well, that was an overreaction to what I thought at the time was a dumb career move, and I am apologizing for that comment.  The truth is, natural gas is a transitional energy source in switching toward renewables, as it's the cleanest-burning fossil fuel there is.  And though that's like being the best ice hockey player in Borneo, the truth is that we're not going to switch to renewables overnight - and if the Republicans take over Washington in 2025 we won't switch to renewables at all.  And that's probably why Ryan, who obviously gets the latter part of the truth as much as the former part, has formed a new organization to prevent that situation.

Ryan announced a new organization in July called We the People, an organization aimed at reaching out toward the exhausted majority that rejects both the bigotry and misanthropy of the Republicans and the political correctness and cultural relativism of Democrats.   He wants to focus on issues such as reviving American manufacturing, energy, health care, and similar kitchen-table topics and offer a showcase for examples of how local issues are successfully dealt with at the grass-roots level.  He wants to highlight solutions to problems that people are implementing locally, outside Washington, to rebuild our political system form the ground up in a bipartisan matter.    

"There is an exhausted majority in the country, and they feel like they don't have any political home at all," Ryan told CBS News this past summer.  "That's maddening because that gives a bigger voice to those forces of division and hate and anger, so we want to build an organization that welcomes these people to participate."

Ryan also wants to build a strong coalition of people within his organization to reject the growing MAGA movement and its hostility toward democratic principles.

"We will also take a strong and hostile position against these forces of hate and anger and fear and division in the country," he explained. "That's the only way for us, in my estimation, for us to allow all of this greatness happening in the country to be able to bloom and to grow."  (Calling his group We the People is pretty savvy, since MAGA Republicans have stolen the first three words of the Constitution's preamble to amplify their own cause.  Ryan is stealing it back.)

Ryan has not ruled out another run for public office, though many Democrats have likely ruled it out for him, since he's a three-time loser - a failed candidate for House Democratic leader against Nancy Pelosi, a failed presidential candidate in 2019 (he didn't make it to 2020) and, despite positive reviews for his campaign, a failed U.S. Senate campaign against Republican James David Vance.  (If positive reviews determined success, art-house films would draw bigger audiences than blockbuster movies based on cartoon characters like James David Vance.)  Also, Democrats never liked Ryan much because he was  not liberal enough for them and too quick to challenge leaders like Pelosi.  Also, he's a white guy from Ohio.  In case you haven't noticed, there isn't a single white man among the top three members of the House Democratic leadership, so even if ol' Tim had decided to stay in the House and pursue a leadership role, he wouldn't have gotten anywhere.

I'm sure Ryan must be bummed that he stepped on too many toes as a House member and doomed any chance he might have had to become Speaker, but at least he won't be kicking himself while seeing an Ohioan far worse than even Vance get that coveted spot - Jim Jordan was forced to give up his bid for it after three failed votes.  In the meantime, Ryan is focused on helping to get people turned off by politics involved in the political mainstream to make sure that good guys like Sherrod Brown (Ohio's Democratic U.S. Senator) win in 2024 and bad guys like all of the Republicans who are part of the MAGA movement (i.e., most of them) do not.  And then maybe he'll be in better shape by 2028 - when Vance will be up for re-election. 😉   

But if Ryan runs for the U.S. Senate again in 2028, the Ohio Democratic Party will probably still be moribund.