Tim Ryan a longshot to unseat Pelosi for House minority leadership

YOUNGSTOWN — U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan is clearly the underdog in his bid to defeat House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday.

But it’s a position he has been in before.

“Tim Ryan has fooled me every time he’s run for office, and he’s fooled the political prognosticators,” said Bill Binning, the retired chairman of Youngstown State University’s political science department, now called the politics and international relations department. “I’m hesitant to speculate on how Ryan is going to do. He has very good political instincts, but this is a different kind of game.

“The leader is the one who raises a lot of dough, doles it out and gets candidates elected. He hasn’t done that before, but I’m hesitant to bet against him.”

Ryan of Howland, D-13th, was a 26-year-old political neophyte in 2000 when he beat the more established Marc Dann, who would later be elected attorney general, and Darlene St. George in the Democratic primary for a state Senate seat representing Trumbull County.

An even bigger upset occurred two years later when Ryan, then 28, won the Democratic primary for U.S. House in a field of six candidates that included eight-term incumbent Thomas Sawyer, who was seen as the clear-cut favorite.

For the complete story, read Wednesday's Vindicator and Vindy.com