The reformicons’ retreat from Ryan-style apocalypticism is not only a shrewd tonal shift, but also a welcome — albeit unacknowledged — recognition that the party’s doomsaying has not come to pass, and that the American way of life will indeed survive Obama’s reforms. Indeed, the success of Obama’s domestic agenda may create more space for a conservative counteroffensive, in the way that Reaganism opened political room for Bill Clinton. Whether or not the reformicons ever compose a workable domestic agenda, they have come to recognize that they cannot run a presidential campaign promising to rescue America from fire and rubble visible only to themselves.
Vinik takes a closer look at this split:
Term limits mean Ryan can’t keep his current chairmanship. And that’s where things get interesting. As a replacement, he’s expected to seek, and to get, chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee. That will give him direct jurisdiction over tax reform and, as the Washington Post’s Robert Costa confirmed in a tweet, Ryan hopes to keep pushing the same supply-side agenda. But that’s likely to put him in conflict with the nascent reform conservative movement. You’ve probably heard of this group. They’re the ones who were the subject of that New York Times Magazine article on Sunday – and who, prior to that, put together a new policy agenda in a compendium called “Room to Grow.” What you may not know is that the chapter on tax reform, written by Robert Stein, represents a substantial departure from agenda Ryan and other supply-siders have been pushing.
Kilgore celebrates this development:
[F]or the moment, it’s refreshing to see that Ryan looks more and more like a standard GOP business hack with an unhealthy addiction to Ayn Rand novels, and less and less like the Brains of the GOP.
The Dish 