No Speaker in modern history has held subsequent office. But he's been Speaker for about 5 minutes now, so perhaps he feels free to take a stab at this. As we saw in 2012, he doesn't have to give up running for his seat to run for President, so he could run, lose the Presidency (natch) and simultaneously be elected to the House. Then, assuming the GOP retains the House (and why not, voter suppression and gerrymandering help ensure the minority party remains in power), they can return him to Speaker for the next term. Ryan is running for the seat the same way he ran for Speaker: by denying it totally and waiting for the GOP to come to him so he can dictate his terms. Not bad for a kid with a dragon named 'Spot.'
this too http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/11/us/politics/paul-ryan-a-mirage-candidate-wages-a-parallel-campaign.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
They won't have a say. At least, not at the convention. There are other fora where this won't be the case, however, so the battle will still be fought. But the convention? That belongs to the party elite, and they're not going to let democracy get in the way of their decision. Why start now? (The Democrats are being extremely un-democratic in their primary too, with delegate apportioning, a funky debate schedule, and the super delegates, all of which are designed to tilt the tables towards their pick. In this case, that's Clinton. But there won't be big bad boom in the Democratic Party like you're going to see in the GOP.)
I've seen a number of Sanders supporters saying that they won't vote at all if Sanders loses the nomination. I've seen an equal number of Trump supporters saying that they will stay home during the GE if the nomination is handed to a wildcard like Ryan. I wonder if enough on either side would really do that. I suspect we've been domesticated to the point that, even when we see that our system for electing a president is really a farce, will just shut up and play by the rules like the good little drones that we are. The major disadvantage to a candidate like Ryan winning the nomination at convention is that he hasn't been campaigning publicly for the job. Trump and Cruz have been whipping up support all of these months. For Paul Ryan to swoop in mid-July and then pull together enough public support by November? That would be a long shot. The question will be whether the GOP hates Cruz and Trump enough to sacrifice the election with an establishment candidate like Ryan or will we see a Trump/Cruz ticket that might encourage the strongest voter turnout.
That suggests that Trump or Cruz are more electable in a general election than Paul Ryan, and I doubt that's so. I think a lot of independent centrists would consider Ryan who would not be very excited about the others, and I have the feeling that even most of the Trumpistas would ultimately show up for him.
I watched an interesting news segment on MSNBC about the convention in 1976? where Ford edged out Reagan in the fight over delegates. There was some very slick maneuvering going on behind the scenes and I think that years went by before it became generally known how Ford pulled it off.
update - the question is, does anyone really believe him when he says, "no." http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/us/politics/paul-ryan-to-ruleout-run-for-president-aide-says.html?_r=0
This is just an opinion, but I think Ryan would be less odious to non-Republicans than would Cruz or Trump. But the act of putting him in as the nominee might diminish support from Cruz/Trump followers because of the reasons now well-known. I think Ryan is going to stop being coy about this (through vociferous denials) and just come out and say he isn't a candidate (through a vociferous denial). I'm sure that will clear things up.
I don't think it suggests that at all. In the General Election you have independents who can tip the vote in either direction. You might also get center leaning Democrats who vote for Paul Ryan (conversely, there could be center leaning Republicans who vote for Hillary). But registered GOP voters have been pretty clear that they want either Trump or Cruz, so far. If we mushed them together into one horrible entity then Crump would have enough delegates to carry the nomination. To say to all of those voters "Nah, we're going with this guy instead" and not expect any sort of resentment from those voters is, I think, a really lofty assumption. The question would then be whether the centrists voting in the GE constitute a large enough chunk of voters to make up for the disenfranchised Republicans who are pissed that the candidate they voted for, who won their state's delegates, was cast aside in favor of a compromise candidate who is SO four years ago.
