The Most Interesting Man in Buzfeed’s Paul Ryan Profile Is Not Paul Ryan

McKay
Coppins’ new profile
of Paul Ryan, which focuses on Ryan’s recent attempts to explore
the issues around poverty, has
aggravated some Democrats by treating the congressman’s
interest in the topic as sincere. Republicans meanwhile might not
care for ways the piece paints Ryan as uncomfortable, even
clueless, as he tries to make sense of poor people’s worlds.

Me, I think the most fascinating figure here isn’t Ryan but Bob
Woodson, the man who’s been serving as Ryan’s guide to the inner
cities. Woodson is an old civil rights activist whose decentralist,
neighborhood-based approach to public policy has allowed him to
make connections on the right—he even had a post at the American
Enterprise Institute for a little while in the late ’70s and early
’80s—but who doesn’t fit the standard profile of a “black
conservative.” (Indeed, the one time I met him, it was at an event
with a rather left-wing vibe.) He’s an independent-minded man whose
commitment to poor people’s well-being is undeniable; he clearly
sees this as a chance to get a high-profile Republican to adopt
some of his issues, whether or not that politician is deeply
commited to the cause.

But that adoption process can be tricky. A few months ago I

blogged John McClaughry’s comments contrasting the conventional
GOP approach to poverty (“Republicans typically do not understand
what life is like in a lower-income or minority community, and are
uncomfortable with spontaneous grassroots efforts which seem to
them to be potentially subversive of the existing order”) with the
view from the ground (“People at the grassroots, faced with
collective problems, usually want the tools, resources and
opportunities to solve their problem themselves,” a perspective
that frequently leads them to “view government and other
institutions as part of the problem”). In Coppins’ piece, Ryan
comes across as a man who may be trying to break free of that old
Republican frame of reference but has trouble getting his head
around the grassroots point of view. One passage in particular
embodies the dynamic:

“I
plagiarize your sayings all the time,” Ryan tells Woodson as we
drive. “Like, we have a poverty management system for the benefit
of the managers.”

“It’s provider-driven,” Woodson says.

“Provider-driven,” Ryan repeats. “Not outcome-based.”

Woodson nods, and supplies an example. “There are issues that are
very pedestrian but very important,” he tells Ryan. “Like, helping
people like this keep more of the money that they earn. For
instance, my daughter lives in Costa Rica. It costs me practically
nothing to call her. It costs me a dollar a minute to call to
federal prison.”

Woodson waits for a response, but none comes, so he reiterates the
point. “These families pay a dollar a minute, Paul.”

“Just to call into prison?”

“Yeah!” Woodson says. “I mean, there’s a huge rip-off of people in
prison, families of people in prison. I have to give my credit card
to a company and they come and tell me, ‘You have $100 on your
account, you have talked for X number of minutes, this is what’s
left on your card.’ And it’s about a dollar a minute. I’m telling
you, it’s crazy!”

“Geez,” Ryan mutters.

For a moment, it seems as though this will mark the end of the
conversation, but Woodson keeps pressing. “So, that is something,
Paul, that we really need to look into. It would reach thousands
and thousands of families around this country.”

As it turns out, the Federal Communications Commission last year
actually banned price-gouging by private companies that provide
telephone service for inmates, though prison reformers remain
concerned that the same shady practices could be applied to email
access and video chat services. But Ryan isn’t aware of that now,
and while he clearly wants to move on, Woodson seems intent on
pushing him just a little bit harder, making him just a little bit
more uncomfortable.

“I mean, this is the kind of issue that politicians just don’t pay
attention to,” Woodson says.

“Or even know about,” Ryan adds.

“But it would have a profound impact if you were to come out and
get interested in advocating for fairness to these families to say
they need to keep more of the money they earn.”

“That’s why we spend so much time on these marginal tax rate
issues,” Ryan offers, weakly.

Bonus link: An old Reason story about
Woodson.