BEN DOMENECH: How Paul Ryan Went From Young Gun To Gone.

In the aftermath of the Democratic waves in 2008, Ryan, McCarthy, and Eric Cantor presented themselves to Republican voters as The Young Guns – a new generation of conservatives largely untainted by the poor decisions of the Bush Administration, ready to lead in a time when Republicans were downtrodden and Democrats ebullient about the possibilities of the Obama years. Of the three, only Ryan had something particularly interesting to say: he was a blue-eyed salesman for the cod liver oil of entitlement reform. And he achieved something truly amazing: he got Republicans, at least for a time, to grasp that third rail. They voted for his reform plans reluctantly at first, but once they discovered the “throw granny off a cliff” ads had little power, their cowardice gradually dissipated.

Ryan was the most important Republican in Washington from 2009 to 2016. He now seems like a throwback from a bygone era, when voters expected their politicians to be straight-laced, honest, and sincere. He was serious, and dedicated himself to trying to tell stories to the American people about the fiscal direction of the country – stories which voters mostly ignored because they always seemed to involve hard news and histograms. Wisconsin nice and a truly decent person, Ryan’s approach was doomed in an era that values none of those things. It values the ferocity, the abandon of confrontational politics, not grand bargains and compromise.

After Eric Cantor crashed into a pile of earmarks, there were a number of political movers and shakers who fixed themselves to Ryanism as a method of grasping at power, not an expression of ideological dedication. They were never really in it because of a belief in Ryan’s refined Citizens for a Sound Economy message (whatever will Henry Olsen write about now?), but because they saw Ryan as a handsome, smart young family man who donors love and see as made for leadership. But leading this herd of cats is a tiring and thankless task Ryan took on out of obligation, not ambition.

It showed — Ryan’s enthusiasm seemed to die as soon as he grabbed the Speaker’s gavel.