Years ago, a small group of friends and I started a meme about Paul Ryan‘s sexy combination of rock-hard abs and fiscal conservatism. It was a spur-of-the-moment joke, based on a New York Times article where the Republican up-and-coming House leader talked about fishing for carp with his bare hands.
But now, as Ryan struggles to make a Republican alternative to the Affordable Care Act work—and faces the possibility that his time in the spotlight might be coming to a close—there’s another guy who could supplant him in the Republican Congress: Sen. Tom Cotton.
I mean, I have to say outright that Tom Cotton could never, ever compete in the looks department with Speaker Ryan. When that man rolls up his sleeves, conservative women everywhere suddenly catch their breath.
Even now, I’m sort of like…whoa. Tell me more about the Laffer Curve, Rep. Ryan.
But Sen. Tom Cotton has his good points. He’s served in the military and is a certified badass. On duty in Afghanistan, the man even took time out of his busy schedule of killing terrorists and spreading democracy to rescue some adorable kittens.
Now, though, these two Congressional heartthrobs are locked in a battle that goes beyond the mere size of their biceps: a struggle over how the Republican Party will handle repealing, replacing or reforming the Affordable Care Act.
Ryan has, of course, proposed the American Health Care Act, which accomplishes some of the GOP’s campaign goals—like ending the healthcare mandate, for example, and guaranteeing right of free exercise for religious health care workers. But it is far from perfect, or even palatable, to most Republicans.
The Administration waffles on the plan daily, saying sometimes that “it’s just the first of a three-part” legislative series, and then pinning the blame for the bare-bones bill squarely on Ryan.
Sen. Cotton, however, has been riding to the rescue of concerned conservatives—perhaps the only one in the GOP badass enough to halt a train going swiftly off the tracks.
Essentially, Cotton is saying that the House is full of crap and that it makes way more sense to try to pass a bill that accomplishes what the Republicans said they would do and let the Democrats take the blame for any failures that happen because they wouldn’t vote for a change in the law. If the GOP doesn’t get the bill right, there’s no guarantee that anything will change—and it’ll be their fault.
So, though I disagree with Cotton on some things, he’s probably earned this, from (at least one) of the Paul Ryan fan club founding members.
Keep it up, someday it could be a meme.