Paul Ryan goes national - Politico

Rep. Paul Ryan is constantly brushing off questions about running for national office, deflecting inquiries as he puts his head down and turns up the volume on his ever present iPod.

But as his public profile has soared, Ryan has quietly built a national political operation that’s flush with cash and designed to defend himself and his party against attacks.

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Ryan spent more than $1.6 million in direct mail since the beginning of 2011 spreading his fiscally conservative budget message across the country. He has $5 million in cash in his reelection campaign coffers â€" a colossal sum for a House member. The donations come from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to campaign finance records, rare national reach for a House member.

Sources close to Ryan say this national apparatus has been built to defend him and the Republican Party against attacks on his sweeping, controversial plan to overhaul the federal budget. But it certainly doesn’t hurt to have this kind of impressive operation in the works if Ryan gets tapped as vice president â€" or if he wants to make a national run himself in the future.

Ryan’s political machine â€" and his goal of defending a budget that has been shredded by Democrats and the Obama White House â€" shows the pluses and minuses in Mitt Romney selecting Ryan as a running mate.

The upside: Ryan is universally liked and respected within his party, is a stalwart conservative, can raise serious money and is considered a policy visionary among GOP opinion makers. Inside the House Republican Conference, Ryan has something of a cult following. A senior Republican aide said “everybody wants Paul Ryan on stage with them” at fundraising events in their districts.

The downside: His time in the House leaves plenty of fertile ground for attack, and his aggressive overhaul of Medicare and proposed tax cuts for the wealthy make him an easy target for opponents. His fingerprints are literally on thousands of pages of budget documents over the past few years.

“If you want to make the Ryan budget the absolute centerpiece of the election, he’s obviously the guy because nobody else will argue it better,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who said he’s a big fan of Ryan. “Second, he’s from a swing state of Wisconsin, but I think people would look and see what happened [in Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s recall election]. There’s a generational match that’s right. And there’s no question that the conservative movement, intelligentsia to tea party, all really admire and idealize this guy.”

Walker, who knows Ryan well, took to The Weekly Standard on Thursday to suggest that Romney select the seven-term congressman.

After a week of stumping with Romney in Wisconsin, pollsters have begun testing Ryan’s potential impact on the GOP presidential ticket. A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday pegged him at third, behind New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. A CNN poll had him fifth behind Condoleezza Rice, Rick Santorum, Christie and Rubio. But a Public Policy Polling survey showed Ryan â€" along with Rubio, Rep. Ron Paul and 2008 GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin â€" slightly hurting Romney’s chances against President Barack Obama.

Prosperity PAC, the leadership fund Ryan created a decade ago, has been the source of funds for much of his political activity. Prosperity PAC has spent more than $1.2 million on direct mail over the past 14 months, and another $220,000 plus on telemarketing and “marketing consulting,” according to records on file with the Federal Election Commission. The PAC raised $3 million between January 2011 and February 2012.