First Draft: Paul Ryan to Urge Republicans to Focus on Policy

Speaker Paul D. Ryan, left, with Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Harry Reid of Nevada at the Capitol last month.Credit Zach Gibson/The New York Times

Is someone going to start listening to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan?

Mr. Ryan, who insists he will not run for president even though a lot of Republicans seem to want him to, will give a speech on Wednesday, urging his party once again to focus on policy ideas, preferably those of House Republicans, in the race for the White House.

“Looking around at what’s taking place in politics today, it is easy to get disheartened,” Mr. Ryan is expected to say, according to remarks prepared for a speech he is scheduled to deliver in his old digs in the hearing room of the Ways and Means Committee. “How many of you find yourself just shaking your head at what you see from both sides?”

“I have made it a mission of my speakership to raise our gaze and aim for a brighter horizon. Instead of talking about what politics is today, I want to talk about what politics can be. I want to talk about what our country can be.”

Mr. Ryan has been persistently making the case that Republicans need a strong conservative slate of ideas to run a successful campaign this fall, a notion that the ascendancy of Donald J. Trump has so far appeared to contradict.

And what is Mr. Ryan not going to say?

“I intend to use my position as chairman of the Republican convention in Cleveland to thwart the will of tens of thousands of Republican voters by grabbing the nomination for myself”?

No, he won’t say that. But Republicans can keep asking.

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