Paul Ryan and the Fund-Raising–Life Balance
According to the Times, John Boehner spent two hundred days a year on the road, attending fund-raising events or visiting donors. And that doesn’t count the coddling he did in the greater D.C. area. In that light, the modern Speaker’s job is less one of a chief operating officer than of a chief revenue officer—or, rather, the guy in charge of investor relations.
.. According to Politico, the “informal plans” being discussed within the National Republican Congressional Committee for meeting Ryan’s conditions include this one: “Committee chairmen and other members of the leadership team would need to step up their fundraising.” Perhaps that would involve something like a regional sales-team model, or one more precisely directed at particular interest groups. Donors could have more intimate relations with the committee chairs who set up hearings on the industries and the policies that interest them. They might even give more cash. (Ryan is now the chair of the Ways and Means Committee, which helps control where federal money goes.)