On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal made an unusual recommendation for the replacement of minority leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to lead the GOP in the U.S. House, citing the need for new leadership, youth and principle. While Boehner is the favorite to retain the position, the Wall Street Journal’s endorsement is likely to resonate with many RLCers.

Rep. Ryan has a lifetime ‘libertarian’ rating in the Liberty Index. While not earning 100%, he nonetheless displays a more-than-passing familiarity with libertarian ideas.

["He says things like] ‘I grew up on Hayek and [Ludwig von] Mises’ at the place in a conversation where most people would say something like, ‘I grew up on a farm,’” notes The Weekly Standard,” a publication not noted for respect for either free market economist. And elsewhere, Ryan says: “I give out ‘Atlas Shrugged’ [by Ayn Rand] as Christmas presents, and I make all my interns read it. Well . . . I try to make my interns read it.”

His timely Austrian background is evident in his Nov. 11 editorial in the Wall Street Journal, where he lists “loose money” from the Fed first in his list of financial crisis culprits. In passing up an easy opportunity to pin the blame on House Democrats and rather state a larger truth, Ryan clearly is seeing through the partisan smoke that surrounds him. That’s leadership.

His Facebook page (yes, Facebook) shows that he has a lot in common with a generation that the GOP lost in its bellicose neocon years of budget-busting and bailouts.

There are negatives to Rep. Ryan also, of course, and these must be evaluated in making sure Rep. Ryan will be 1) a net plus for our ideas and 2) the best among the alternatives. Please feel free to list them under comments, below, for everyone’s consideration.

Should the RLC jump on board this bandwagon? Surely there will be discussion of this possibility in the various state RLC Yahoo Groups. In the past, the RLC has endorsed intraparty leaders and some state RLCs have followed up by sending personal letters to their state Congressional delegations urging them to vote our way. In a war-weary party hungry for new leadership, this time they just might.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect official positions of the RLC.
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