“It’s too bad the election isn’t today.”

— Ann Romney, quoted by USA Today.

Rep. Paul Ryan “stepped to a podium Tuesday night for a defining moment in his legislative career,” USA Today reports.

“For the better part of the past decade, he has carved out a niche as a leader in the Republican Party based in part on the ideological purity of his budget blueprints, but this week he played a co-starring role in cutting a budget deal with liberal Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington.”

New York Times: “With
a modest, bipartisan blueprint on taxes and spending, Mr. Ryan is
taking a risk he has previously shied away from, putting what party
leaders see as a crucial need — ending the debilitating budget wars in
Washington that have crippled the Republican brand — over his own
self-interests with the conservative activists that dominate the early
Republican presidential primaries. For the first time, the conservative
wunderkind and former vice-presidential nominee is taking withering fire
from movement conservatives who see the deal as a betrayal by a former
ally. Potential rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in
2016 immediately went on the attack, blasting the deal and challenging
Mr. Ryan’s status as the thinking man’s conservative.”

Former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) “has toyed with running for the Granite State’s Senate seat. But only in the last two weeks have many GOP leaders there begun taking Brown seriously. Whereas before they saw a fallen political star desperate for attention, they now see a possible first-tier contender genuinely contemplating a campaign,” National Journal reports.

Dylan Byers: “But here’s the thing: It doesn’t matter what the New Hampshire GOP says, or even what Brown himself says. The surest indicator of Brown’s political ambitions is what Roger Ailes, the Fox News chief and the man who writes Brown’s paycheck, decides to do with his contract.”

“Republicans are so nervous about Staten Island Rep. Michael Grimm’s re-election chances that they’ve quietly reached out to former GOP Congressman Vito Fossella — who quit five years ago after confessing to having a secret second family — to make a comeback for his old seat,” the New York Post reports.

“Grimm is currently the subject of an ongoing Justice Department probe that centers on whether his campaign solicited illegal donations from foreigners during his 2010 campaign.”

Meanwhile, Politicker reports Grimm bashed the report and other “baseless rumors.”