The Republican Party operates in an orderly fashion when it comes time to pick their next presidential candidate. John McCain was second to George W. Bush in the 2000 primaries, so he became the nominee in 2008. Because Sarah Palin was obviously not fit for the job, the nomination in 2012 went to the second vote-getter in the 2008 primaries, Mitt Romney. That would leave Paul Ryan as the logical nominee for 2016 (especially since Rick Santorum, the second most popular candidate in the 2012 primaries, is never, ever going to get the nomination). But it looks like Ryan is doing his damnedest to sabotage his chances for the presidency. Talking Points Memo noticed a talk radio appearance by Ryan where he tried to explain why he voted for the bill to avert the fiscal cliff:

“We had been hit with a $4.4 trillion dollar tax increase yesterday, and I had the opportunity to knock it down by $3.8 trillion dollars,” Ryan told radio host Hugh Hewitt Wednesday. Since tax rates had already reverted back to Clinton-era levels for everyone once the vote took place January 1, he argued, he was actually voting to cut taxes.

That's some awful bullshit right there. That's double-backflip tortured thinking that will get Ryan plastered in every Republican debate for the next twenty years. So what's the next thing that Ryan does? Today, he voted against the Sandy relief bill. So if he was somehow able to get past the Republican primaries, Ryan would get plastered in the general election for voting against federal funding for hurricane victims. This is not the voting record of a man who's going to be his party's presidential nominee in 2016. Honestly, I don't think Ryan is even interested in running next time.